Did you notice? Last week, in a bid to address Gen Z and Gen Alpha, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chose Hindi as the medium of communication. He could have chosen his mother tongue Gujarati instead, if he wanted, as the event was being organized at Vadodara. However, it was evident Modi wanted to send his message to the larger audience. Hindi, thus, was the right choice.
This is the reason he chose Varanasi along with Vadodara as a perfect option from where to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The corridors of power buzz with an old pearl of wisdom that all roads to New Delhi pass via Uttar Pradesh. No wonder before Modi, Uttar Pradesh has given seven prime ministers to the country.
The importance of Hindi and the Hindi belt is acutely articulated by politicians from the non-Hindi belt. After prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru’s demise, the Congress Party requested party president Kumaraswami Kamaraj to become the Prime Minister. He declined the offer insisting he didn’t know Hindi which was necessary to assume the throne of Delhi.
On the eve of Hindi Day I can say with pride that our language, Hindi, is indeed acquiring a global footprint. If we believe the data released by the international database Ethnologue, the total number of people who can speak, understand and use Hindi language stands at over 610 million. Ninety per cent of them live in India. In the past few months I have travelled to many countries including China, Georgia, Turkiye and heard the term namaste quite frequently. Namaste has emerged as the quintessential signature of Indianness.
The majority of Hindi speaking population outside India is concentrated in Nepal, United Arab Emirates, the US, Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Britain and Canada. Fiji and Mauritius were populated by Hindi speaking Indians. If we count the GDP of all the above-mentioned countries, the total will be in the vicinity of 50% of the global GDP. It’s no surprise that 30–40 million NRIs regularly contribute financially to their relatives, religious institutions, saints, etc. back home. Remittances are an important component of adding foreign currency to our exchequer.
However, let me be clear that this isn’t the only source of foreign capital. Our artistes and films that earn in foreign markets contribute substantially to our exchequer. It’s said that if you want to have leverage over a country you must send your people even before opening an embassy. This is the reason we see politicians in Britain, the US and Canada celebrating Hindu and Sikh festivals. These countries have witnessed a large migration of Indians since the 19th century.
Homeward bound
Let’s talk about our own country.
Before Independence, when Mahatma Gandhi along with his close associates tried to establish Hindi as the national language, some Congress leaders from the non–Hindi-speaking states raised their concerns. It was decided that for the initial 15 years every state will use English for official work and then a decision on the language would be taken. Since then Hindi couldn’t become a national language. But there’s no need to feel despondent.
If we are proud of our language then we should also respect other regional languages. Whatever politics or politicians might say, languages can act as bridges between people and not be a divisive tool. We Indians have proved it. Had it not been the case then the language movements during the 1960s and 1970s would have ripped the country apart.
However, the age of artificial intelligence offers us a unique chance to correct our past mistakes. Today anyone can easily watch films of south Indian actors such as Mammootty, Mahesh Babu, Mohan Lal, Vijay and Allu Arjun dubbed in Hindi. In November 2024 during the release campaign of Pushpa-2 trailer, South Indian star Allu Arjun came to Patna. A crowd of 150,000-200,000 people gathered to welcome him. Most were those we call Gen Z or Gen Alpha.
Social media, too, is playing its part in bridging the gap creating a new language, which is an amalgamation of words and terms from different local and foreign languages. It makes me wonder if we are witnessing an emergence of a new international lingua franca? If this is the case, the computer and internet age will achieve what our forefathers could only imagine.
As far as Hindi is concerned, I am as confident and optimistic about its future as I am proud of its glorious past. Best wishes to all on Hindi Day.
Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan. Views are personal.