"Chennai, I would never want to go there!"
"Why can't south Indians speak Hindi"
"Tamilians are regionalist..."
Jeering at someone's language is a common spectacle in any casual conversation. Mocking at the Hindi of South Indians, more common than that. Films like Padosan, Chennai Express and a few others take the mockery to the next level. The topic I am heading to is not South Indian pride or prejudice against South Indians/ North Indians/ East Indians, because I think we are all equally prejudiced against each other. While we all have either been a part of the Hindi, being or not being the national language at some point in our lives, few of us have cared to examine the reasons behind it.
http://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/nehruvian-china
Here Mr. Guha does a good job in explaining a pluralist state and concludes we are linguistically a pluralist state. Though we have been considerably pluralist in terms of language, the debate on the need for everybody to speak one national language or the inability to speak Hindi being considered as regionalism is undeniably a part of the popular narrative today. While most of us understand (assume) that Tamils didn't want a foreign tongue imposed on them. Until I read "Debrahminising History", I was only aware of the contention that Hindi which is spoken by a few states (even in those states, it is the dialects like Awadhi, Bhojpuri that are spoken and not necessarily Hindi) cannot be imposed on the entire country quite unaware of the other side of the coin.
The self respect movement was not just a movement to state the Tamil identity but also a movement against the brahminical hegemony. Imposing Hindi was a part of the larger nationalistic narrative of "Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan" which was not acceptable to Periyar and his more illustrious followers. He viewed Hindi as an extension of subordination of the non-brahmin classes by the brahmins. Thanks to him, we have retained our linguistic plurality, if not the attempt was to have a single language across India. Today it is fascinating how the entire point of stand up against the brahminism is sidelined and only the language identity is sustained. It is also worth noting that the attempts to Hindiize the south is still on, through subtle ways of mocking at the non Hindi speaking population.
Personally, I have nothing against the language. I would say we should learn as many languages as possible but hegemony, we better stand up against it.