Travails of a ‘Native Hindi Speaker’
(This article originally appeared on MyIndMakers.) Hindi- walas are probably one of the most, if not the most, hated linguistic groups in India. From the often violent anti-Hindi movement of the south to recent social media trolling about ‘Hindi imperialism’ ever since Narendra Modi-led BJP government riding a huge parliamentary mandate romped to power in Delhi, the Hindi speakers have seen it all. Hardly a day goes by when you don’t encounter someone ranting and outraging on the mainstream and/or the social media about the evil Hindi- walas , the votaries of Hindi, Hindu, and Hindustan, who are out to ‘impose’ Hindi and their culture on the rest of India. Such feeling is prevalent probably more in south India than in the other parts of the country. So, why does Hindi invoke such feeling, one may wonder? Well, on the surface the root cause of this antagonism may seem to stem from the constitutional status of Hindi. After independence the new Constitution of