There was a time when a woman used to put on a redder shade of lipstick, a blacker shade of mascara, to look prettier than she actually is. And one fine day, the fine people of the country decided they’d try it out on their character, to look stronger, and hell, prettier than they actually are! And, I think it is safe to say that today, they’ve actually done a better job at the ladies behind the scenes.
Not too long ago, the Centre issued a notice, promoting (the mass prefer to use ‘imposing’) the language Hindi all over India. Apparently, since it was not restricted to only Hindi-speaking regions, the entire nation felt it had to rise and stop a language from taking over states that did not use Hindi, and that it was against the nation’s diversity-thriving ‘policy’. Southern states claimed that it was their right to communicate and travel in their own language, and not just Hindi, and they had no rights to even ask them to do so. It went against their pride. And that was that: the bomb’s been dropped, the forests are on fire, the volcanoes have erupted, first blood has been drawn, call the troops right away.
Government leaders from different parts of the country are scrambling for their share of opinion, their judgments, and last but not by any stretch of the imagination, least, for the ubiquitous uproar that says that the language is the most fought for, most protected attribute of our nation. It is extremely unexplainable how everyone is always ready and up and about to fight over a linguistic divide, but issues like rape, harassment, injustice, inequality, inhuman treatment get easily thrown out the magically reappeared window.
Trivial issues have seeped in so loudly into the humans as a veil to cover up the fact that we don’t have enough courage to stand up and fight for mightier issue. The same people who are grieving over the ‘imposition’ of a language that is not theirs’, could not bear the same pain when a fellow passenger had been dying on the road for all to watch (and nothing but watch), or when a woman was being raped, or when a family was denied justice, simply because the powerful beat the less superior.
These small humans only fight over issues that require to pain, no blood, no strength. It is just another brighter shade of powder than is better at hiding the gaping, wide open scar that screams, ‘I do not and will not have the strength to pursue bigger, much more hostile cases, but I want to look more beautiful, so I will fight brutally for a language divide, because it’s a blemish much more easier to put make-up on.’
Oh certainly, it is wrong to impose a language-rule in places where that particular language is barely known, let alone spoken. And the Centre should know better, a whole lot better. The people have the right to communicate in whichever language their state so pleases, and not be burdened with having to use one that they are not familiar with. But the people of India should also know better than to hold candle-light marches and feign empathy and hold meetings to overturn a language rule, while right outside their building a poor man is being trashed to death for…being poor.
The bigger issues would definitely require a much bigger uproar, but if one is ready to put up such a front for just wanting to protect their language and culture, they could feel readier to stand up for the very people that use the language. If the Centre passes such a notice, issuing bigger problems to be dealt with in a tougher, more strict way, then the only issue we’d be fighting for are the linguistic issues itself!
It’s so easy to look at the smaller crevices because it’s easier to fix them, but there are bigger earthquakes around, and one day, if nobody stands up to the real evil, everyone’s going to end up dead and buried and forgotten when the earth shakes and trembles.
If our country fought against rape, hatred, violence, ethnic and religious murders, and the countless like, the same way they ‘fight’ for a n issue over the use of a language, our country wouldn’t need a hint of make-up, it would be so beautiful, it would make any woman at the salon shamed to the core, but at the same time, proud beyond the core.
