[Reader-list] Exploring a New Construct of Hindi Culture

[himanshu ranjan]

Exploring a New Construct of Hindi Culture (posting 2)
 
     As I have tried to premise in the preliminary outline of my research project (The Growth and Role of Allahabad as a Cultural Centre of the Hindi-Urdu Belt), the Hindu and the Muslim elites intentionally made the 'house-divided' in the latter half of the nineteenth century, imposing the ethnic identities of their communities on Hindi and Urdu languages respectively. This typical communal divide came as a severe jolt to the societal fabric getting off the ground for the nationalist movement and the nation (or nations?) in making. Being quite a modern phenomenon it was connected with the cunningly manoeuvering devices of the colonial state on the one hand, and the emerging trends of centralization on ethnic and communal line through the freedom struggle on the other. A tug-of-war between the two elite leaderships prevailed throughout, resulting finally in the partition of the country into two sovereign states, one predominantly Hindu, the other overwhelmingly Muslim.
     The divide further prolonged and deepened in many ways. India and Pakistan, since then, had to face in their respective states complexities in the intertwined arenas of language and ethnicity. The original Hindi-Urdu belt (i.e.north-western province and now extended as Hindi Pradesh) being communally divided between Hindus and Muslims, became so sectarian in its attitude that it invited a more divisive contention with the rest of the country, namely, the north Indian Hindi-speakers verses speakers of other vernacular languages. The promoters of Hindu-Hindi, exploiting its previleged position of having link-language status, inflicted a fear-complex among the 'Muslim-Urdu speakers' on the one hand, and provoked the regional elites of the other part of  the country, especially of the southern states to stand in confrontation with, on the other. Till today the latter often perceive the country as being dominated by north Indian Hindi-speakers favouring centralized rule from New
 Delhi and demand greater regional political autonomy for their states. Similarly Pakistan, coming into existence on the wrong foundation of the two-nation theory, gave the national language status to Urdu, but could not control its regional imbalances. A further division took place and Bangladesh came into existence on the very linguistic and regional ground, though it has been cursed to face a cute ethnic and identity crisis today.
     Allahabad took charge of Hindu-Hindi promotion agenda from Benaras in the twentieth century. There was an obvious under-current of Hinduism in the nationalist movement. But at the same time, the Indian National Congress in the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi became a broader umbrella, encompassing different socio-political groups and ideologies. This democratic combination along with the pluralistic structure of our society made a tremendous effect on the nationalist movement itself and the growth of Hindi language as well. Although having been trapped in the multifaceted isolation, Hindi at the verbal level of communication and in its inner structure of creativity, had to respond to pulls and pressures of mass movements and a common-man orientation, often setting aside the desires and claims of the ruling elite.
     The colonial hangover and its neo-colonial continuation may define the whole process to be a passive and totally non-commital 'public sphere' but the fact of the matter is that several socio-political and literary manifestations have also come up and served as anti-thesis during the long span of the century. Allahabad alone, as a leading cultural centre of the belt, has witnessed different shades and variations of both the trends side by side.
     Restricting myself to the pre-independence period for the time being and leaving the latter half of the century to be discussed in the next posting, I have chosen five representative institutions of Allahabad -- the Indian Press, the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, the Swaraj Bhawan (previously Headquarter of The Indian National Congress), the Hindustani Academy, and the Hindi Department of Allahabad University -- to work on and explore the vicissitudes of a new construct.
                                                                     Himanshu Ranjan
                                                                    CSDS Independent Fellow
 




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