Telugu govts sneering at own official language

To me, Indianisation does not mean Hiduvisation but Indian Culturalisation. To me, it also means moralisation, ethicalisation of politics, economics, education and administration. To me, Indian religions are different, but Indian cultures are by and large the same in the sense of values and virtues that they cherish, relish , hold and uphold.

Cultural aspects like hospitality and hospitability, gratitude, love, kindness, compassion, even passion, their way of greeting meeting and treating and eating, their concepts of marriage and bringing up and educating children, their treatment of women and many more matters including most of their tastes which are oriental are the same, if not the very same.

Thus, culturally we are by and large the same though religiously different. We should therefore talk, write, mean and understand Indianisation in this sense, and not in the sense of Hinuvisation or Saffronisation. That is the way to be secular and to be united. There is no other way in the Indian context and situation. I understand Indianisation of our education in this Indian cultural, moral, ethical, normative sense and not in the religious sense, and I want to work for that for the rest of my life.

To me educational Indianisation would and should mean creativisation of it, which it is not now. To substantiate what I mean, I have written on how our present-day education imparted through English medium in many private and public educational institutions is adversely affecting the creativity of our children right from KG to PG. This has not been debated much so far and therefore it needs national and state level debates.

There should be private institutions also but their media can be in central official languages (Hindi and Urdu) and state official languages (in the case of Telangana State: Telugu and Urdu) depending upon the strength of students opting for them. It should be made obligatory for the government institutions of the Centre and the States to impart education only through the declared official languages and in no other. All other media can and should only be had in private sector institutions.

The conditions prescribed for recognition of the institutions, whether private or public, should be the same, which in both the sectors should be strictly followed, not like now where private sector is able to charge any fee that it likes and even surreptitiously raise donations, whereas public institutions are starved of funds and thereby ruined and consequently rendered unpopular as has happened and is still happening in AP and Telangana States.

The result is Telugu medium which was doing so well earlier has been so much neglected in terms of funds and facilities. Instead of owning that as the real reason for their limping and sinking, the government itself started saying and propagating that parents and students are preferring English medium to Telugu medium, and hence they are going to provide English medium in government institutions right from KG to PG.

This amounts to going against the very official language policy which they adopted in the legislature ipso facto, admitting that Telugu shall be the medium in public sector institutions as Telugu can’t become the official language unless it also became the medium of instruction. This was so very clear even to the then Nizam’s government in Hyderabad, which adopted Urdu as the medium of instruction in accordance with their official language policy.

But when our own democratic governments were formed in the name of the Telugu language, they did not evince any interest in the development of Telugu, but evinced interest in winding up the Telugu medium which had been doing well for many decades. What an irony! There is a saying in Urdu “ultaa chor kotwaalko daantaa” which means instead of kotwal, police man, accusing and abusing the thief, the latter himself started accusing and abusing the kotwal.

The government’s finding fault with the Telugu medium is that sort. They themselves damaged it and they themselves are raising hue and cry as if Telugu medium has damaged itself. (The writer is founder convener, Telangana Educational & Cultural Forum)

By Dr Velchala Kondal Rao