ALIGARH February 8: Noted Sociologist, Dr. T.K. Oommen, Professor Emeritus of Jawharlal Nehru University said that although India’s mind boggling linguistic diversity has acknowledged, independent India’s language policy was precariously proximate to that of the nation-state. India pursued a policy which privileged Hindi, spoken only by 38 percent of population even after mother tongues are encapsulated within.
He was delivering the keynote address of the three-day International Seminar on “Language, Culture and Identity: Issues and Challenges” organized by the Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University. Prof. Oommen pointed out that Urdu, the sixth major language of India has an all India presence comparable to that of Hindi. But since it is not the principal language in any state Urdu is subjected to discrimination creating frustration among its speakers. On the other hand the tendency on the part of Urdu speaking Muslims to relegate their regional language identity to the background and fore ground their religious – linguistic identity needs to be noted. Thus during 1951-61 bi-lingual Muslims throughout India revealed their preference to proclaim Urdu as their mother tongue leading to a growth of 68.7% Urdu speakers.
On language and identity he threw light on various issue like national language, linguistic reorganization of states, nation-state, homogeneity and heterogeneity. He added that India should abandon the goal of establishing a nation-state which is wedded to the creation of a homogeneous society and in its place adopt the idea of nation-state which celebrate cultural diversity.
On the issue of linguistic state reorganization he commented that linguistic state is necessary but not sufficient and is an unfinished task in India. He referred the language policy of India as ambivalent and said “pluralism is the way forward for India”.
Delivering the presidential address, Prof. P.K. Abdul Azis, Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University said that no one can destroy the language and culture of a country. He suggested that the policy should be like that it should nurture the diversity of the country. There should be no compelling situations and we want an India of our own choice. He added language is a powerful tool of communication and pointed out that English is a language of communication, science and technology. He said no one is interested to provide education to their children in their mother tongue. Everybody is interested to get their children to English Medium School. Prof. Azis said India believes in Unity in diversity.
Highlighting the objectives of the three-day international seminar Prof. S. Imtiaz Hasnain, Director of the Seminar said that contexts of globalization, emergence of knowledge society, increased migration flows worldwide, new information technologies and desperate regional growth have impacted the socio-cultural fabric of nations worldwide. These social, cultural and linguistic phenomena pose questions and challenges before Indian societies not only in terms of how to manage the effects of growing complexity of identity, language and culture but also how the Indian societies represent themselves in these processes.
Prof. Richard Hallett of USA, Prof. Sangeeta Bagga Gupta of Sweden, Prof. Anvita Abbi, Prof. Devi Prasad Shastry, CIIL, Mysore and Prof. A.R. Fatihi welcomed the guests.
Dr. Masood Ali Beg conducted the programme and Dr. Shabana Hameed proposed a vote of thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment