Parmanand Pandey, Advocate, Supreme Court (Secretary General IPC)
There is almost an outcry from the people of Jammu and Ladakh regions to declare Hindi as the State language. There is some opposition, of course, from the valley to this popular demand – and the reason for this opposition is obvious – but such opposition is totally misplaced.
It is common knowledge that Hindi is compulsorily taught in all schools across all these regions. The dialects that are spoken in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are Dogri, Kashmiri and Ladakhi respectively. Ladakhi is considered to be close to Tibetan language. Hindi is understood by every inhabitant of the state. Therefore, in all fairness, Hindi should have been declared as the state language even before the abrogation of Article 35A and 370 from the Constitution of India.
There is, therefore, no justification to have the land and other records of both the union territories of Jammu and Ladakh in Urdu. Large scale land frauds have also been reported because of the use of Urdu script in official records, which script is not understood by most of the residents of these regions. Urdu can certainly be retained as the second language. After all, Urdu is the second language in many other States in India, like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, where it is not read or written by even 0.5 per cent of the population of those states.
Needless to say that an overwhelming majority of the people in both these Union territories are very well at-ease with Hindi, written in Devanagari script. Forced imposition of Urdu on these people of the state is, thus, atrocious and amounts to creating hindrance in the progress of the young generation there, which is longing to amalgamate with the rest of the country.
Urdu may be an elegant language, but it is fit only for Sher-o-Shayri. No higher education can be imparted in this language while, on the other hand, Hindi because of its vast vocabulary derived from Sanskrit, has emerged as the robust medium of higher education, be that Science, Technology, Literature, Philosophy, Agriculture, Entertainment, Astronomy, Medical Science, Physics, Chemistry or Classics.
J&K and Ladakh have otherwise also strong umbilical cord relationship with Sanskrit. Even the Constitution of India provides that the official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagri script. (vide Article 343). Further Article 351 mandates that it shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of Hindi language by enriching its vocabulary by deriving – wherever necessary or desirable – primarily from Sanskrit and secondarily from other languages.
The idea of the constitution framers was to strengthen Hindi with the help of other languages like Panjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Kannad, Telugu, Tamil, Nepali and Malayalam etc.; and dialects like Bhojpuri, Maithili, Awadhi, Bundelkhandi, Rajasthani, Chhattisgarhi, Kumauni, Garhwali, Dogri, and Ladakhi etc., so that Hindi can emerge as the lingua franca of India for the cohesion of this country and sooner than later.
Any delay in declaring Hindi as the state official language of the J & K and Ladakh will amount to huge injustice to the people there. Now when both Union territories are being governed from Delhi, it is expected that the Union government will take immediate steps in this regard and replace Urdu with Hindi; otherwise, communal and fissiparous forces will do everything within their power and with the support of outside forces to sabotage this “people’s friendly” cause.