But, with patience, flexibility, and a conciliatory approach welded to a determined outlook, Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, then the Home Minister of India and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language, managed to secure consensus on the status of Hindi.
At a time when a push for Hindi again evokes a strong reaction from various regions with their own well-established traditional languages and evokes concern about long-term consequences, it is worth revisiting the tumultuous scenes in Parliament in the late 1950s when this issue first flared up.
It is more important to see how Pandit Pant, a political colossus in more than one sense, skillfully managed to achieve consensus on his strategic goal of making Hindi the official language of the government, while being open to tactical adjustments about the timing of the removal of English.
It becomes all the more important as subsequent events a few years hence — the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu in early 1965 — and the threats to the unity and integrity in the still-young nation it engendered, are considered.
It was then that a wise head of state cautioned his principled but committed head of government against taking a step that could exacerbate the situation — but that is another story.
To get back to the story of the stormy debates of 1956-57 when Hindi’s status as the principal official language was contested, but later indubitably sealed, we can rely on the detailed recollections of the late journalist and editor Kuldeep Nayar, who was then an Indian Information Service officer, and Information Officer to Home Minister Pant (and later Lal Bahadur Shastri).
In his “Between The Lines” (originally published in 1969, reprint 2018), he tells us the story of the language issue, along with three other defining episodes of the Indian Republic — the creation and fate of the Congress regional satraps of the ‘Syndicate’, the decision to devalue the rupee, relations with the Soviets, and additionally, a diary of the tense times during the India-China War of 1962.
In ‘Bilingualism’, Nayar sketches the adroit manoeuvres of Pandit Pant, who skillfully achieved his desired ends despite major differences in the committee — “with hardly a sitting which was devoid of invective, accusations or denunciatory expressions” — as stalwarts such as A. Ramaswami Mudaliar, the redoubtable S.A. Dange, Frank Anthony and B.S. Murthy, on one side, faced off against Purshottam Das Tandon, Seth Govind Das, Dr Raghu Vira and Manibehn Patel (daughter of the Sardar), among others, on the other.
As Nayar contends, it was the second group, steadfast in their goal of achieving a Hindi-alone status as soon as possible, that turned out to be the biggest hindrance in what Pant wanted, having “realised that the post-Independence fervour to have one language as the focus of national unity had ebbed away” and the “criticism that Hindi had neither any cultural or political pre-eminence over the other regional languages had become louder”. Even Hindi proponents like C. Rajagopalachari and K.M. Munshi had warned that haste of the pro-Hindi lobby was being counter-productive.
But, as the account shows — and it holds significance for the present too — Pant, who wanted Hindi as much as the others but was more far-sighted, had realised that this haste to axe English was actually detrimental to Hindi, for the regional languages were taking its place. And when Hindi achieved its desired place, it would find it difficult to dislodge these regional languages from the position that a link language should have.
And then with regular challenges cropping to the settled issue of Hindi as the official language, Pant, a canny politician, knew “that by not insisting on a definite date for the change-over, and not restricting the use of English, he could head off the demand for fresh thinking on the language question”.
And he did succeed in this goal, by winning over the non-Hindi speaking members to enable his goal of getting the Committee to “endorse the constitutional obligation of having Hindi as the official language of the Union”.
But it came at a price — as mentioned — for him personally. In the final meeting on November 25, 1958, where the motion for a firm timetable for the switchover from English to Hindi was defeated by a single vote, as Pant, the Chairman, did not use his casting vote, Tandon flared up.
“You are a traitor. Even in UP, when I was the Speaker and you the Chief Minister, I had my doubts about your love for Hindi. Today I am convinced you have none,” he said. As Nayar recounts, it led to deep silence, left members visibly disturbed, and even tension in the “normally unflappable” Pant, whose stick, resting by the side of his chair, fell to the floor with a crash.
This was a signal for members from both sides, including Mudaliar and Seth Govind Das, to remonstrate with Tandon.
Finally, Pant spoke up. “I place India’s unity before Hindi, and I am sorry if I have not come up to the standards of Tandonji.”
And in this exchange are the pitfalls — of prioritising zeal before reason, maximalism and form over compromise and content, and antagonising your steadfast adherents for not toeing your line unswervingly — that Pant tried to avoid. The language issue would see more twists and turns in the times to come, with none of the lessons learnt and calculations replacing the commitment.<br> <br>(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
–IANS