The ugly scenes in Maharashtra Assembly -- where legislators of Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) slapped and [roughed up a Samajwadi Party legislator for taking the inaugral oath not in Marathi but in "national language" Hindi provide a lot of food for thought and are bound to keep the commentariat busy. Three perspectives:
First, Samar Halarnkar in the Hindustan Times:
The chattering classes of Mumbai’s high-rises hate and fear the Senas, ascribing to them a lunacy beyond understanding. But scratch many seemingly sensible Maharashtrians, and they will gradually talk of culture, tradition, language and the fear of being swamped by Mumbai’s great and growing diversity. Of course, they will insist, the way Raj is going about this is wrong, there must be no violence, but you know, what he says isn’t really wrong...
Next, Rajeev Dhavan in the Indian Express, like a good lawyer that he is, doesn't lose sight of the crux of the matter and has useful practical suggestions:
The correct course of action is for the Speaker to issue breach of privilege notices to those who directly participated in this breach, as well as those who conspired to make it happen. This means notices should go to Raj Thackeray to ask him of his complicity in the conspiracy. If he says he was not part of the conspiracy to disrupt the assembly, he would knock himself down a peg or two on this issue. If he admits his involvement, he must be punished along with the others, albeit by token suspension for the legislators and censure for the non-assembly conspirators. At this stage, to punish by imprisonment would make martyrs of such persons. But, issuing process of breach of privilege is a must.
Meanwhile, in the DNA, R Jagannathan, while not questioning Abu Azmi's constitutional right to take oath in Hindi, joins issue with the Hindi hegemonism that his supporters have adopted:
Speaking about Hindi as a national language is no different from speaking about Hinduism as India's official cultural expression. Hindi is a great language, but it is not any more national than Marathi or Kannada, or Bengali or Telugu. Ironically, it was left to the MNS to point out the obvious: that Hindi is just another regional language of India.
Constitutionally though, while there may not be a "national" language, Hindi indeed has been privileged, and as Dhavan points out:
There was always a Hindi version of the Constitution. But if there is any doubt, the 58th amendment mandates the president to publish an authoritative text of the Constitution and every constitutional amendment of it in Hindi (Article 394A). If someone wants to take their oath in Hindi, they are doing no more than following authoritative text of the Constitution itself!
Dhavan also comes to the heart of the matter in his usual no-nonsense style:
What is even more ironical is that even in the Maharashtra assembly, two BJP members took their oath in Sanskrit (Girish Bapat, Girish Mahajan). Congress members took their oath in Hindi (Amin Patel, Ramesh Singh Thakur) and English (Baba Siddique). It is said the Samajwadi Party MLA, Abu Asim Azmi, drew attention to himself and his choice of language. Suppose he did, so what?
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It's always gratifying when regular readers revert back with something that they come across that reminds them of something they encountered here. This one via Anurag and Amita Sathe who saw this here and were reminded (I think) of this, but couldn't find the right thread to post to.
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Just finished reading Dreaming in Hindi, for these excerpts, which deals very much with the same subject, and not surprising therefore that this should catch my eye: Lera Boroditsky writing in the Edge:
For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world.
More here
Surely India would be a goldmine for such data...
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Um, this comes via the Language Log and has to do with two edgy young Scottish gentlemen named Martin [Dickie] and James [Watt] founding a new microbrewery which in due course was shortlisted for the Entrepreneur of the Year award in Scotland. The story has its genesis in the course of filling out the forms for the award. Hear it from James Watt:
One of the questions slightly annoyed me; it was a longwinded one which involved the much maligned phrase ‘corporate social responsibility'. Young companies are about surviving, expanding and paying off debt, especially in the current financial climate. We are not yet in the stage where we have the luxury of philanthropy and I did not want to do what most other companies would do in this situation and invent some spiel about walking old ladies dogs, saving the odd panda at lunch time and adopting a young whale with a below average IQ.
So I gave an honest answer. After all, they would not give Entrepreneur of the Year to a couple of 26 year olds anyway.
Here's the question (and the answer provided by James):
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He went on to explain why he wrote what he did:
It was brutally honest, perhaps a little too self assured and edgy, but it was our opinion. I was also sure it would get the judges attention after a long day looking at allot of boring forms trying too hard to conform and impress. It was also a dig at the ever increasing reach of corporate ethics and political correctness. At BrewDog , we are not big on saying what we are supposed to anyway!
With the judges somewhat shockingly impressed we claimed the award - Martin and James won 2008 Scottish Entrepreneur of the Year...Maybe the other answers or the beer tasting in our final presentation sealed the deal!
So far so good, but the young entrepreneurs soon found themselves in the reckoning for the European Entrepreneur of the Year as well, and the other one ended up travelling to Rome to do a presentation to a judging panel of international dignitaries and superstar business people. Here's how he describes his experience:
Arriving perfectly on time I was greeted by a slightly worried looking German Frauline. After excitedly telling me that our entry form had been sabotaged I listened intently as she tried hard to explain the castastrophy that had occurred. She told me in her direct uncompromising fashion that very insulting things had been written on the form and that hopefully the judges hadn't seen them and that they were doing their best to rectify the situation and sort it before I had to present my lecture (and it was a lecture) to the executive panel. After not being able to tell what the hell she was on about for the best part of 5 minutes I finally got a word out of her that made sense to me. ‘Mother Teresa'!
Now I knew what I was dealing with. I remember reading about Mother Teresa on a form that James had filled in about 6 months ago and laughing at the irrelevance of the question to a start up company. This brought a smile to my face, which only made matters worse. Deducing that perhaps the humour of this comment was rapidly lost in translation, I again wryly smirked a little bit at the predicament I found myself in.
I was summoned into the room and handed over the pen drive with the info and was introduced to the panel. The initial atmosphere was a bit frosty as I commenced the presentation. Undeterred by my German peer I set about enchanting the judges with some Brewdog magic. After 15 minutes of full on PowerPoint rock ‘n roll they sat captivated. Or at least I thought they were captivated.
Jean Stephens was unable to get the words out to complain, he was so shocked and embarrassed. Our original entry form was soon thrust in front of Martin with the phrase ‘I am not fucking Mother Teresa' underlined and high-lighted. The former Romanian President then stepped in and asked Martin; "Why you sleep with Mother Teresa?'
The Language Log debates the various possibilities:
At this point, we have a bit of an exegetical puzzle. The context, and the explanation in the next paragraph suggests that Mr. Constantinescu's question should have been "Why you not sleep with Mother Teresa?"
Well, whatever. Click here for the full story
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