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Confessions of the multi-lingual
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Is cultural diversity a lost cause in liberalised India?
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Photo: K.R. Deepak
under one umbrella In India unity is far more complex than diversity
Vibha Singh Chauhan, a professor of English, writes a novel in Hindi, enriched with the sweet dialect of Eastern U.P. Her colleague, Sukrita Paul Kumar, also a teacher of English at Delhi University, expresses envy at her felicity with her mother ton
gue, mentioning a dimly felt yet persistent sense of rootlessness in those who use more English to communicate than any regional language. Yet she speaks just as eloquently, deliberately using the mixed language of India’s educated elite. Another guest, K. Bikram Singh, speaks first in Hindi, then in English, “for the pleasure of diversity”. Through it all, points out Kumar, there is simultaneous translation going on, not generated in interpreters’ booths but in the hearts and minds of the listeners and speakers. Because this is India. A country where unity is far more complex than diversity.
The book release of Chauhan’s “Ganga Jamuna Beech” at New Delhi’s India Habitat Centre this week shared the limelight with the launch of a set of DVDs, “Cultural Diversity in South Asia” based on a seminar held last year. The connection between the novel and the DVDs was Delhi University’s course on Cultural Diversity, introduced in 2006-2007, of which Kumar and Chauhan are founding faculty members. Naturally, praise for the novel overflowed into discussions on India’s cultural multiplicity.
The university’s cultural diversity programme, said Kumar, Chief Editor of the course book “Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Plurality and Literary Traditions in India”, was formed in response to a felt need to introduce Indian students to literatures and worldviews beyond classroom norms so far.
Take “Bulla ki jaana main kaun?” Rabbi Shergill’s music video may have been a hit with youngsters. But not too many knew about the Sufi poet Bulle Shah whose mystic verses set the 18th Century Punjab countryside afire, before the text told them about him and other voices from India’s range of literature.
Deep-set prejudices
Kumar pointed out that monolingual societies, especially of the West, whose academic inclinations affected India deeply, had deep-set prejudices and myths against multi-lingualism. She illustrated how natural it was for Indian children to speak several languages from the moment they learnt to talk. This project, she said, was “in a sense, doing the subversion through English.”
Bikram Singh, while praising the dedication of the teachers, held back no punches in saying that a college-level intervention would never be enough to fight the ill effects of globalisation, which turned us into mass producers and mass consumers, largely wearing, eating and living identically, leading to “the death of diversity”.
Lost cinema
He cited how the vibrant parallel cinema cultures in Indian languages like Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Assamese and Hindi, etc., had all but disappeared under the swathe of commercial cinema.
When his generation was in school, education was supported by inputs from home in terms of recited scriptures, devotional songs, storytelling and the like. With entertainment options “homogenised” through TV, “Today’s parents are not in a position to give cultural options to their children,” he said, wondering why Doordarshan, the national broadcaster, refused to respond to this situation.
With liberalisation, the pace of change had assumed a “steamroller” effect, he said, predicting the end of diversity within a few generations. But Singh ultimately sweetened the onslaught, saying, “I would like to say I like people who fight for lost causes.”
ANJANA RAJAN
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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