Tamils were learning hindi but then stopped when forced: Jayalalitha

Chairman of the Press Council of India Justice (retired) Markandey Katju conveyed to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa his desire that Tamils should learn the language of Hindi. After his brief meeting with her, Mr Justice Katju told The Hindu that Tamils faced a lot of difficulty in communicating with people in the the north, west and eastern regions of the country, whereas people of other southern States, who knew a bit of Hindi, did not have such problems. Ms Jayalalithaa told him that Tamils were indeed learning Hindi till the 1960s. She also pointed out to him that when the study of Hindi was sought to be imposed on the Tamils, there was a strong reaction.

Mr Justice Katju responded, saying that he agreed with her that nothing should be imposed as this was the age of democracy.. People should be persuaded, not coerced. It was wrong on the part of certain north Indians to have attempted to impose Hindi on the Tamils.

When he told her that he understood that she knew Hindi, Ms Jayalalithaa started speaking in fluent Hindi.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2947321.ece

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I agree with Jayalalitha that tamils should not be forced to learn hindi. They should be allowed to learn hindi voluntarily. Also those tamils who do not wish to learn hindi should be free to do so. At the same time those tamils who do wish to learn hindi should also be free to do so without being subjected to threats and physical intimidation. for example:

It is good to know that Hindi is being received better these days in Tamil Nadu (Konjam Hindi, Apr 20). I myself was raised in a staunch anti-Hindi Madras. It was so bad that my Arya Samaj-run school received three bomb threats in seven years because it promoted Hindi. Thanks to my parents, I was forced to choose Hindi and Sanskrit in school. Subsequently, due to my mother’s efforts and my own interest, I learnt to read Tamil as well. The dmk had been propagating the lie that the spread of Hindi would make Tamil extinct. All my fellow South Indians continue to speak their mother tongue with the same ease with which they speak Hindi. Karunanidhi himself, when asked why his grand-nephew was being given so much importance in Delhi, remarked that it was because he had good command over Hindi. So, obviously he has a different yardstick when it comes to his family. It’s high time we started looking beyond petty politics and learned to adapt and embrace other languages and cultures—assimilating them into ours without forsaking ours.
Ashwin, Jersey City, US

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?240235

Rashmun wrote:I agree with Jayalalitha that tamils should not be forced to learn hindi. They should be allowed to learn hindi voluntarily.

Rashmun, if someone wants to learn a language, they'll learn. There's no question of someone disallowing them. It is the state-funded advocacy of the language and insistence on its usage in transacting government business (to the exclusion of English - a more useful link language) that is annoying and loathsome.

Merlot Daruwala wrote:

Rashmun wrote:I agree with Jayalalitha that tamils should not be forced to learn hindi. They should be allowed to learn hindi voluntarily.

Rashmun, if someone wants to learn a language, they'll learn. There's no question of someone disallowing them. It is the state-funded advocacy of the language and insistence on its usage in transacting government business (to the exclusion of English - a more useful link language) that is annoying and loathsome.

Merlot, would you agree that tamilians are studying hindi in greater numbers today than in the past? Please share your thoughts on the following article. Why do you think tamil parents want their children to learn hindi? :

Parents opt for Hindi over Tamil in TN schools
Ajitha Karthikeyan | TNN

Chennai: Their grandfathers took to the streets, raised slogans and even went to prison, protesting against the “imposition” of Hindi in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s. More than four decades later, many Tamil kids are studying the “rashtra bhasha” even before they can pick up the alphabets of their mother tongue.

Raj and Aruna did not think twice when they got a note from their son’s school to specify the second language they wanted their kid to learn from first standard onwards. Their unanimous choice was Hindi.

In fact, about 90% of their son’s classmates will be studying Hindi as the second language, as young parents feel their children’s horizon should extend beyond the boundaries of the state.

“At a time when we are talking about a global village, we cannot say no to Hindi anymore. Once we cross the state’s borders, we need to know Hindi for survival. I don’t want my son to be handicapped due to lack of knowledge of Hindi,” said Raj, a software professional.

“Unlike those in government jobs, people working in the private sector have to shuttle from one state to another. Hindi comes in handy at such times,” said Aarthi, a HR manager in a private firm.

However, the new-found love for Hindi is not going down well with the older generation. Soundararajan, a retired state government employee, regrets that his grandchildren are’t learning Tamil. “I am not against Hindi, but feel that children should learn to read and write their mother tongue first.”

“We have been advising parents to opt for Tamil as it is the state language. Though we tell them that their children still get to learn Hindi as a second language in the upper classes, parents clamour for Hindi,” said a teacher working for a leading CBSE school.

State public works minister Duraimurugan, one of the prominent student leaders who participated in the anti-Hindi agitation in 1965, said only the elite prefer Hindi over Tamil.

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwOS8wMi8wMyNBcjAxMTAx

Merlot what do you think of the following article?

In February 2011, about 50,000 people in Tamil Nadu — 13,000 from Chennai alone — appeared for the Prathamik-level Sabha examinations, with over 95 per cent passing. Two years ago, the number was 43,000. Inter-state mobility and the trend of job-hopping are key reasons for the increase in interest in Hindi, says Balakrishnan. “The IT industry is partly responsible for this,” he says. Sreenivas, a 58-year-old student at Hindi Vidya Niketan, says he realised the importance of Hindi over a decade ago but could only find time to learn it closer to his retirement. “I have lived all my life in Chennai because I don’t know any other language. But I made sure my daughters studied for Hindi exams even though they couldn’t study the language in their school, which followed the state board curriculum,” he says.

There is a visible cultural dilation on Chennai streets, once famously protective of all things Tamil. Five years ago, Arumugam, a 55-year-old auto driver from Ambattur, would have told you off if you asked him for directions in Hindi. Today, he parks his auto on the bustling North Usman Road and calls out to people: Kahan jaana hai? (Where do you want to go?) “It helps to know basic Hindi — kitna (how much), kam (it’s not enough), dur (far), aa jao (come),” says Arumugam.

Hindi has helped not only autowallahs but also ministers clinch deals, says CNV Annamalai, general secretary of the Sabha in Chennai, and member of a central government advisory committee under the Ministry of Rural Development. “I have always said, Mr Karunanidhi would have been PM long ago if only he had known Hindi. His daughter does, though. She was a Sabha student,” says Annamalai, in faultless Hindi. “There is a lot of demand for Hindi in south India. In a year, six lakh people from the four southern states appear for Sabha exams,” he says, adding, “Studying Hindi does not mean ignoring Tamil.”

On Thanikachalam Road, R Krushnamurthy, a Hindi bookseller, says the demand for exam guides is slowly rising, but that of Hindi novels and reference books is not. “I started selling books in 1990. In 1996-97, I was selling 10,000 copies of exam guides, some of them self-published. Now the number has more than doubled,” he says, adding, “There is a Hindi teacher in every apartment complex in Chennai, seriously.” Balakrishnan laughs and nods. “Theruvellaam Hindi muzhakkam (the cries of Hindi in every street),” he jokes.

Those who cater to corporates believe there is a greater demand for spoken Hindi. Rajan Menon, of Language Tree in Virugambakkam, says, “With IT migration, there is interest in spoken Hindi like never before. We conduct 25-day workshops where we teach communication-based Hindi. There are many takers.” Knowledge of Hindi is no longer an unimportant qualification in the job market, says Anoop S., a senior manager with a pharmaceuticals company in Chennai. “Yes, English is the first language of industry, but what if you are posted in Lucknow?” says Anoop, who hired a private Hindi tutor for three months last year.

For Swati, the grounds for learning a new language are more poetic. She points to one of her favourite couplets by Kabir: Dheere dheere re mana, dheere sab kuchh hoye; Mali seenche sau ghara, ritu aaye phal hoye (Slowly slowly O mind, everything happens at its own pace; The gardener may water with a hundred buckets, the fruit only comes with the season). That pretty much sums up the Hindi wave in Chennai.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chennai-says-it-in-hindi/830371/0

Shweta Narayan, an environmental activist, from Bihar, living in Chennai, said something that shows how Chennai has changed in recent years, both in character and composition. "When I first came here in 2003, I didn't know Tamil and that was a big problem, since people would basically not speak anything else. Even when I went to the beach in the evenings I would hear Tamil all around me, and the older people I met used to discuss news in the US, since their children had gone to study there."

A few years later, she got the shock of her life one day when travelling in an auto-rickshaw. "I was trying to speak to the driver in Tamil (she'd learnt since then), and he kept replying in Hindi." And to complete the picture, she says that when she goes to the beach now, she can hear more people speaking in Hindi than in Tamil.

As stories go, this is a random observation. But in another sense, it is deeply illustrative. Put simply, there are two trends at play here, and they could come to define Tamil Nadu for many years to come — Tamils going out and seeking better jobs for themselves and the flow of labour coming in from other states.

Expat Tamils
Apparently, Tamil Nadu has now overtaken Kerala as the state that sends the most number of workers overseas, both to the Middle East and to places like Malaysia. No systematic study has been done but there are indicators. Professor S Irudaya Rajan of the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, one of the country's foremost experts on migration, estimates that there at least 2 – 3 million Tamils living out of the country. The state is now second only to Kerala in terms of remittances received from abroad.

"Because they are moving to other parts of the world, there is going to be a scarcity of labour in Tamil Nadu. For instance, in some time, you'll find that there won't be electricians or welders who are local guys. You'll find that these are people coming in from the less prosperous districts of states like Orissa or West Bengal."

In Chennai, such changes are already evident. You need only look around to notice that most of the people who work in restaurants, beauty parlours or even the city's numerous construction sites are from out of town — from the Northeast or states like Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal.

Tamil Nadu is also witnessing a period of unprecedented economic growth, that's not confined to Chennai. A major concern, Rajan says, is falling fertility rates. As a state, so to speak, we're not getting any younger. People are living longer and having fewer children. "Today, about ten people out of a hundred are over the age of 60 and in 20 years time, that proportion could change dramatically. One out of three people could officially be classified as old."

Mimicking the West
Strangely enough, these are issues that are common to several, more developed regions like Europe and America. And like them, it's possible that the continued economic growth of Tamil Nadu could hinge on the continued inflow of labour, and crucially, on the state's ability to provide a conducive, welcoming environment for them to live and work in. For a state renowned, especially in the north, for linguistic chauvinism, this is a potentially tricky situation, but the attitude towards non-Tamils is already changing.

M Vijayabaskar, assistant professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, has worked on rural labour markets in the state, particularly in the Tiruppur region. He says that about 10 years ago, people said they preferred to hire workers from the south, especially women, because they were reliable. On a recent visit though, he found contractors and factory owners showing the same preference for labour from other states. Local labour is now seen as unreliable, because people come and go depending on the agricultural season, while migrant workers stay on.

Not many know this, but several traditional industrial centres in Tamil Nadu are already being run, in large part, through outside labour. This is evident, says K Pandia Rajan, MD of Ma Foi Randstad, when you look at the Sinhalese foremen in the garment factories of Tiruppur, or the large number of Oriya workers now employed by paper factories in places like Sivakasi.

Incoming labour
Professor Raman Mahadevan, of the Institute for Development Alternatives in Chennai, sees the flow of outside labour linked to other trends — of agrarian distress in other states and of the 'silent' social revolution that's taken place here. With the diversification of industry and the success of the public distribution system, the average Tamil worker can choose not to settle for the back-breaking labour that once may have been necessary to survive.

Along with the state's labour department, the IDA recently conducted two surveys in brick kilns around Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram. Their surveys showed that 50 per cent of the workers came from Andhra Pradesh, 20 per cent from Orissa and five to 10 per cent from Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Contractors who have their own connections now do more than 50 per cent of the hiring. "But if you want to understand how labour comes in from these states, you just have to go to the train station and see what's happening on platforms where trains from the north and the east arrive," says Mahadevan.

The squeeze in local labour is by no means restricted to smaller towns and industrial centres. Padam Dugar, director of Dugar Housing, builders of flats and townships along the Old Mahabalipuram Road, says that a significant portion of the labour now coming in for construction is from out of town. "With the level of infrastructure development in the state, Chennai is no longer the commercial hub for workers. Also, as education has gone up in the state, quite often, the second generation workers want to do something different.''

Interestingly, Vijayabaskar adds that while interviewing workers in Tiruppur he found that many of them were saving money to go to Malaysia or to the Middle East. ''Even workers from small villages are now able to imagine a career abroad."

Whether it's the new, upwardly mobile Tamil or a series of contractors with cell phones, labour markets in Tamil Nadu have already seen significant changes. But while some would argue that this represents a healthy, even desirable free exchange of labour between states, Mahadevan emphasises that there is also a heavy element of debt bondage involved.

Going grey
By 2025, south India's population will begin to grey. According to a report titled the 'Indian Demographic Scenario 2025' from the Population Research Centre, Institute of Economic growth, New Delhi, the average age in the region will be 34 years in 15 years as opposed to 26 years in 2000 but more importantly, nine per cent of the population in south India will be 65 years and older. Add to that Tamil Nadu's falling birth rate, and the region will soon be facing a shortage of adults in the productive age group. On the other hand, north India will have a relatively young population with a median age of 26 and only four per cent of the population will be 65 years and over.

Flying, far far away.
Rs 41,400 crores is the amount Tamils working abroad sent home as remittances between 2006 and 2008. This is second only to Kerala, says professor S Irudaya Rajan. Rajan works with the Research Unit on International Migration at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. However, he does point out that the absence of reliable data on the socio-economic profile of Tamil migrants, both inter-state and international, is cause for concern and should be taken up for research by the government. One of the major areas in which remittances arrive from abroad, he says, is in the housing market. "I remember going to a flat opening in Thiruvananthapuram where about 110 of the 120 flats being sold, were to non-resident Keralites who wanted to buy homes," he says. While the proportion is not quite so high in Chennai, builders in the city, like Padam Dugar say it is a trend that's on the upswing for new flat complexes coming up in several newer suburbs such as along the Old Mahabalipuram Road, an extension of the IT corridor.

http://jayasreesaranathan.blogspot.com/2010/09/changing-demographics-of-tamil-nadu.html