One of the least noticed, yet supremely important developments in the run-up to the 2024 elections has been the fond adoption, even embrace, of the Hindi language by large sections of people outside North India as their primary source of political news and commentary. The emergence of Hindi as a language of resistance during the recent past has helped it remove the misconception among non-Hindi speaking Indians as a tongue of status-quoism and domination.
This is a significant development that should not be lost sight of amid the tectonic shifts happening currently in Indian politics; this is very much an integral part of that churning. The credit for this endearing of Hindi among people who were until recently wary of it should go to the dozens of YouTubers and journalists who successfully challenged the might of the Godi media and reached out to millions of Indians with a message of hope and sanity.
From Dhruv Rathee, Ravish Kumar and Arfa Khanum Sherwani to Ashutosh, Nidhi Sharma and Akash Banerjee, these warriors for Indian democracy and secularism have brought the language of the North to the rest of India in a way that is qualitatively different from, say, what Bollywood has achieved over the years, or what the votaries of Hindi imposition were never able to attain.
This transformation of Hindi into a repository of critical thinking and political rebellion and its recognition as such beyond the North has powerful implications far beyond the immediacy of political communication and popular mobilisation around the idea of India as a pluralist nation. We are seeing a new form of national integration via Hindi, where a large number of non-Hindi speaking patriots shifted to Hindi language programming, because they thought what was available in their own tongues were far less critical, and way more conciliatory to Hindutva. Besides, Hindi being spoken by much larger number of people, programs in that language also gave them a better view of the ground shifting.
Also read: Hindi, the New Hindutva Weapon of Polarisation
Although I had lived in New Delhi for 10 years in the 1990s and the early part of this century, my proficiency in Hindi remained less than passable. The reluctance to the language was primarily because of the fear, which most people in South India and elsewhere share, that the attempts at imposing Hindi at the national level posed a major threat to their linguistic and cultural traditions, distinctive identities, and the integrity of the nation.
However deep-rooted the wariness towards Hindi was, this was to change dramatically over the past couple of years, and many of us found ourselves falling in love with Hindi. I must have spent hundreds of hours passionately listening to the people named above and lots of others. The progressive YouTubers were giving us a language and idiom in which one could effectively challenge the inanities of the ruling dispensation.
Many programmes on progressive YouTube channels, especially some of the discussions on Satya Hindi and Ajit Anjum’s platforms, also stood out for their depth and analytical rigor, in contrast to the mainstream English language channels which peddled only noise and nuisance, or channels in other Indian languages which either joined the Godi bandwagon or pretended neutrality at a time when the situation demanded unambiguous political positions.
In short, the new ‘Modified’ definition of the role of the media as ‘speaking truth to the opposition’ was becoming unbearable for many people. While the ‘mainstream’ channels showcased as ‘political analysts’ or observers many intellectual mercenaries whose true vocation was to compete with the official spokespersons of the ruling party, the emerging independent ecosystem of secular platforms in Hindi stood out for their unequivocal rejection of hate, violence, and viciousness, presenting only credible individuals in their programs.
Arfa Khanum Sherwani’s programmes were unique in imparting to the listener a perfect mix of noble emotions, informational lucidity, and forthright political morality. Ravish Kumar’s reasoning and indignation could strike a chord with millions of people across India because he was expressing in elegant language what they were feeling about the ‘systematic dismantling’ of the republic. So many non-Hindi speakers preferred, despite insufficient proficiency in Hindi, these programmes to the platforms in their own languages or in English because they articulated the concerns and issues much better than programmes more accessible to them in their mother tongues.
Also read: BJP’s Linguistic Agenda Is Antithetical to Progress and Education
Many who mistook ‘Mann Ki Baat’ for ‘monkey bath’ a few years ago have now not only understood the meaning of ‘nafrat ke bazaar mein, mohabbat ki dukaan (a shop for love in a marketplace of hatred)’, but also started using the phrase without translating in their own languages. That Hindi has now won the hearts and minds of legions of Indians who earlier looked askance at the language reflects a determination to forge alliances across linguistic and regional divides against the purveyors of hate.
Hindi need not be imposed as a national language for it to spread. When a language becomes the vehicle of desirable ideas and voices of sanity at a critical juncture in the history of a nation, even people who do not understand it will try to learn it. I am happy to report that my vocabulary in Hindi has now become so rich that I can listen to complex theoretical discourses and understand them fully, thanks to a bunch of adorable YouTubers who elevated it to the status of ‘national language of resistance’.
Shajahan Madampat is a writer and cultural commentator writing in Malayalam and English.
