My side of words from a discussion on WhatsApp with old college classmates. I've stringed them together verbatim. I'm no expert in linguistics so plz pardon my technical inaccuracies as these were written with the flow of quick responses as they occur in such group discussions. Instantaneous outpourings at the spur of the moments of discussion so naturally they lack scholarly depth, apologies.
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Right now there's no national language of India. Both English and Hindi are official languages of India. Three language formula is mandated all over the country. The third language is where Hindi or English are not the primary language. This's best exemplified in Railways. But this's within India.. At international fora any country needs an identity. That's where a language which could represent us is required.
Apabhramsha derived from Prakrita was link language all over the country before and after Islamic invasions..so much that the foreign invaders when beset with a link language problem chose to sprinkle apabhramsha with Arabic,Turkic,Persian words in their hordus(military camps, turko-mongol word from which the current English word hordes comes), this hordu became synonymous with a link language for the Islamic rulers and was desified on pronunciation to Urdu. That's why deep in south the Muslims still use a variant of Urdu called dakkhani and in fact in Telangana its the second language. This underscores the history of apabhramsha which the alien invaders started calling Hindi(of Hind) as they called all Indians as Hindus. Thus the history of Hindi is ancient and only the name has changed.
There're cousins of apabhramsha derived from prakrit and those are all languages in northern India. Structurally Tamil is not derived from prAkrita but is heavily influenced by it. We should never equate Hindi alone with nationalism. And no regional language suffers because of Hindi. Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam & Gujarati best examples.. their language and culture thrives despite they being proficient in Hindi. Hindi is primarily spoken in Raj,UP,MP,CG,Bih,Jh,HP,Har & UK. Very strictly speaking from technical PoV, Hindi is not the primary language of any state, it has always been and continues to be a link language. But I wrote that to simplfy things in current context for an audience which cannot go into too much of depth (in that WhatsApp group). And all regional languages have their local dialects apart from standard register, Bengali in Purulia is different from that in Koch Behar even incomprehensible to respective natives that doesn't stop Bengali from being a state language. Telugu in Khammam is starkly different from that in Kadappah or Prakasham or Srikakulam. So this Haryanvi being a separate language from Hindi etc argument is futile.
English is, most unfortunately, de facto our default language because of our colonial and subsequent seculib history. It should have been made redundant long ago. South Korea is an economic and technology giant..minimal English used..i gave its example as till 70s it was an underdeveloped country. Japan, a colossus already..and China the new world superpower both do not use any European language. Hindi is a link language already despite no real efforts from govts post 1960s. Still, IMHO SaMskrita should be our national, official and technical language which will nourish and strengthen all our regional languages. In ancient bhArata till Brits came there was a greatly successful language structure: SaMskrita in governance & education, ApabhraMsha for inter-region communication and then respective regional languages. Kannada, Telugu, Nepali, Manipuri, Malayam all developed because of this. In fact before the country's modernization almost all Indians were multilinguals. I firmly believe in multilingual bhArata with saMskrita as our "The Language".
English is the reason behind not Indian ascendancy but our gradual corrosion and ruin cloaked in progressive modernization. Remember, all the West Asian, Central Asian and European invaders came to loot us because we were the richest country in world with the best technology and we were the number one economy in terms of world's GDP for over two millenia neck to neck with China not because of any mlechcHa language. Till 1700s even after seven centuries of perpetual war with invaders and many genocides, loots & plunders India was contributing 25% of world's GDP.
Frankly speaking I'm proud of the Bengali I learnt and proud that my knowledge of Hindi is clear and Intact and that I can read and understand Assamese while can't read but understand a bit of Odiya, Gujarati & Panjabi..Marathi, Konkani & Nepali easily readable and I can understand some of them too. Not because any genius but because they're all the same! Except the four "Dravidian" languages all of the languages from Goa to Gujarat to Panjab to UP to Bengal to Manipur are prAkrita sisters or cousins and if we try a bit hard are mutually intelligible. Tamil is mutually intelligible with Malayalam and there's only superficial difference between Telugu and Kannada. Marathi, Konkani and Kannada share a lot while Telugu and Odiya have a lot in common. No Indian language is isolated or exclusive. Kashmiri is a dArada language derived from saMskrita parallel to prAkrita but with shAradA script. Kashmiri ie Koshur is a cousin of languages in what are now Pakistan and Afghanistan which unfortunately are now dissociated from bhArata thanks to change in "faith".
English is a colonial imposition that's why it's needed internationally. Not because its a great language chosen by world out of love. Koreans, Japanese, Chinese do not hanker after acknowledgement from anglosaxons..in fact these giants make the West follow them. Of course right now all of a sudden Tamil or Hindi or Sanskrit cannot be made our one language overnight. It has to be a gradual overhaul. In fact the constitution assembly was in favour of SaMskrita but Nehru vetoed it adamantly as a PM with his gang of muslim members in the assembly and the Anglo-Indian nominees.
No one is imposing Hindi actually. It's more of a few mongering started in 60s by Dravidian secessionists with active prompting and support from West & Xtian orgs..continues till date. Do we know how many local languages were killed in contemporary Telangana and Seemandhra to impose Telugu when it was AP? Or that how Tulu and other local languages are being currently extinguished by successive govts in Karnataka to make it a proper Kannadiga state. Or how Dravidian secessionists destroyed languages of Nilgiris to make it a great Tamil Nadu. Hypocrisy when oppose "Hindi imposition" when its suggested only as a trilingual formula not any replacement of regional languages. I advocate growth of all languages of bhArata unified together, preferably, with saMskrita as they were before.
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