Editor,
International Mother Language Day is observed every year on 21 February to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. According to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, one language dies every 14 days as powerful groups impose their languages on speakers of less common languages.
The imposition of a dominant language on people with a different language (linguistic imperialism) is a symptom of a disease that can cause long term problems and hinder a country’s progress. There is no room for the ‘one nation, one language’ policy in a multilingual democratic country like India.
Bangladesh’s liberation against Pakistan’s language imperialism has given us many lessons. First, it refutes the two-nation theory of Savarkar and Jinnah and shows that language imposition cannot be swept under the carpet of religious fraternity. Second, it proves that India’s three language policy is a right step in the right direction.
On the other hand, a liberal language policy helps Belgium achieve peace and prosperity. Belgium has recognised Flemish, French, and German as its official languages, even though German speakers constitute a small minority of the population, to effectively solve their internal strife.
It solved the language conflict by implementing a federal system, dividing the country into distinct linguistic regions with significant autonomy, where Dutch (Flemish) is spoken in the north, French (Walloon) in the south, and a bilingual Brussels capital, effectively allowing each language community to govern its own affairs while maintaining a unified national government. It has been ensured that there would be equal representation for both Dutch and French speakers in the federal government.
Having thus solved its language problem, Belgium has got an enviable position in the Human Development Index. Between 1990 and 2025, Belgium’s HDI value increased from 0.806 to 0.942 and now it stands at the 12th position out of 193 countries. We should learn from Belgium how peace and prosperity are directly proportional to liberal language policy. If India wants to better its 134th rank in the HDI, it has to take many measures. A liberal language policy is certainly one of them.
India also needs to follow the language model of the United States of America. In spite of being at the top of technologically advanced countries, the USA falls back on ballot paper voting to root out any suspicion of foul play stemming from voting through EVM. Interestingly, these ballot papers are available in all major languages of a state, depending on its demography.
While a voter in New York can choose a ballot paper in Bengali instead of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Korean, voters in Illinois can opt for a ballot paper printed in Hindi. It also shows how a democratic country should honour the mother tongue of even those voters who have origins in different countries.
The Reserve Bank of India needs to take a cue from the American election. As per the 2011 language census, states like West Bengal, along with southern and northeastern states, are not Hindi-speaking and have adopted English as a secondary language. I am a Bengali and a resident of Kolkata. The RBI has surprisingly been sending a number of important SMS messages to me exclusively in Hindi.
I could infer that these SMS messages were about online fraud prevention, but I struggled to understand the instructions.
If the RBI has to use Hindi, it should stick to India’s three language policy by sending SMS first in the primary language of the state, then in English, and at the end in Hindi for non-Hindi speaking states.
The Centre needs to follow the language policy of Belgium and the USA. Extra care needs to be taken to see to it that there is not a single attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states.
Sujit De,
Kolkata