Anthony D'Costa wrote:
> There are two main national languages: Hindi and English. A good number
> of people don't speak either. But they tend to be from rural areas from
> the non-Hindi belt.
>
my experience differs somewhat from this assessment. i am from madras
which is definitely from the non-hindi belt, but is hardly rural. the
number of people who speak hindi in madras (or at least used to, when i
lived there 15 years ago) is/was restricted to the north indian
population and children from the privileged class, enrolled in "central
board" schools, who are forced to learn the language as part of the
curriculum. and even that is a stretch... i studied in such a school
myself and graduated without even a passing knowledge of the language.
not one person in my vast array of relatives (in the region) can speak
hindi and these are people from the middle or upper classes.
with the advent of popular hindi television, some of this may have
changed, though that process of subtle imposition of the language
(starting with the "national programming" in the 80s) had itself been
subverted in the 90s through the dubbing of such programmes in regional
languages. we may not see a repeat of the fiery demonstrations that
madras witnessed a few decades ago, against the imposition of hindi by
the centre, but it may be a safe bet to suggest that the majority of the
people from the region may prefer english over hindi, if a common
language is to be enforced.
the other regions of southern india (karnataka and andhra pradesh in
particular) may not have a history of such militant opposition to hindi.
--ravi
