Propagation of Hindi education down decades with eye on jobs, myth of it being national language, lack of movement to fight for supremacy of Odia among key factors
Even as Tamil Nadu is on the warpath with the Centre over the alleged imposition of Hindi through the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, some 1,500-odd kilometres away, in Odisha, the resistance to the three-language policy is nearly non-existent.
Despite the pervasive effect of Hindi – which is among the three major languages taught at most schools and used in day-to-day communication – on Odia, the state’s official language, the absence of protest against NEP, which Tamil Nadu says is a central ploy to impose Hindi, is telling, given Odisha’s pitched battle against Bengali imposition in the late 19th century.
Also read: Why West Bengal is largely at peace with 3-language formula
Experts attribute it to a wider acceptance for Hindi among the state’s populace, propagation of Hindi education over the years, and the utter lack of an organised movement to fight for supremacy of Odia language and instil a sense of Odia nationalism among people.
Odisha is among the BJP-ruled states which will implement the Centre’s NEP.
Why Hindi is popular in Odisha
“We don’t see Hindi as a threat because we have been living with it for a long time,” Natabara Satpathy, a retired professor of Odia, told The Federal.
Unlike in southern states, the cultural life in Odisha is largely influenced by Hindi due to people’s love for Hindi cinema and songs, Satpathy added. The common thread of Sanskrit, from which both Hindi and Odia trace their origin, also fosters their co-existence.
“Odia uses a lot of Tatsama (borrowed words from Sanskrit) and Tatbhava (localised version of Sanskrit words) words. For instance, ‘Kua’ in Odia and ‘Kuan’ in Hindi are the Tatbhava versions of the Sanskrit word ‘Kupa’, meaning well. The similarities between the two languages make Hindi more acceptable to Odia people,” Bishnupriya Mishra, a former schoolteacher in Jagatsinghpur district, told The Federal.
Also read: Kerala embraces 3-language formula, but politically resists Hindi imposition
Hindi in school education
For many years, Hindi has been one of the major languages taught in both government and private schools in Odisha. While students prefer to take it as a third language in government schools after Odia and English, Hindi in public schools is either a second or a third language, being taught from lower classes itself.
“Some CBSE-affiliated schools have also given students the option to pick Hindi as the second language, pushing Odia to the third slot,” said journalist and political analyst Rabi Das.
Mishra said that with Hindi working as the lingua franca in North India, many parents want their children to be proficient in the language so that they don’t face any hiccups in education or job in future.
“It is only in the past few years that people have begun migrating to southern India for education or jobs. Earlier, the migration was mostly towards North India and learning Hindi was considered an important criterion to be able to mingle with the local population there,” she said.
Also read: Telugu states never disliked Hindi; it’s partly politics, the rest is history
‘National language’ myth
“The commonly-prevalent myth that Hindi is the national language of India, was also one of the major reasons why people saw it with reverence and wanted to learn it,” she added.
Historically, providing alternatives to Hindi like Urdu or Telugu as the third language has proved less effective due to absence of teachers in these subjects, Mishra further said.
States opposing the Centre’s three-language policy have the exact fear – that mandating a second Indian language besides English and the mother tongue under NEP would impose Hindi education in non-Hindi-speaking states in the absence of teachers for other Indian languages.
Has Hindi grown at the cost of Odia?
Given Hindi’s popularity in Odisha, one might ask if it has taken root in the state at the cost of Odia language. Educationists and trend watchers respond in the affirmative.
Satpathy pointed to an “alarming” trend among youngsters to use Hindi words, phrases and idioms in day-to-day communication in Odia. The same applies to dialogues and songs made in Odia films in recent years.
“Odia is unique because of its stress on the last syllable of words. For example, we say ‘bhata’ for rice and not ‘bhat’. The stress here is laid on the last vowel of ‘a’. But the influence of Hindi is ruining that,” he said.
Also read: Why TN-Centre spat on 3-language impacts North Indian migrants
Satpathy further said the language is facing an increased usage of ‘halant’ (a symbol used to show the lack of an inherent vowel) with Odia words getting replaced by identical words loaned from Hindi. For instance, the original Odia word of ‘Bikasita’ is being pronounced as ‘Biksit’ (from Hindi’s ‘Viksit’) while the capital of ‘Bhubaneswar’ is being pronounced as ‘Bhuvneshwar’ by many.
‘Odia words dying’
Columnist Rudra Prasanna Rath said the influence of English and Hindi has made several Odia words obsolete among the younger generation.
“People have started using Hindi phrases like ‘Thodi na’ or ‘Fir bhi’ in conversations. Several Odia words have also disappeared from daily parlance. Ask any youngster and they wouldn’t know the meaning of words like ‘Atma garbi’ (egoistic) or ‘Swarthi’ (selfish) in Odia. Social media is only making it worse,” he told The Federal.
Rath in 2018 began a social media campaign flagging the use of Bengali spellings for Odia words in advertisements, finally prompting several business houses to apologise or correct their ads.
The lost love for Odia language and lack of encouragement by parents to help children cultivate the habit of reading Odia literature and engage with the language, is also alienating the younger masses from the language, Rath says.
Also read: Why TN feels Centre is 'sneaking in' Hindi after failed attempt in 1968
“The lack of readership has led to the closure of several popular Odia magazines like the weekly pull-out of ‘Prajatantra’, 'Meena Bazar', 'Sansar', 'Sishu Raija' and 'Janha Mamu',” he said.
A census report has also indicated a drastic fall in Odia speakers between 1971 and 2011. According to the report, while 3.62 per cent of people in the country were speaking Odia in 1971, the number fell to 3.46 per cent in 1981, 3.35 per cent in 1991, 3.21 per cent in 2001 and 3.10 per cent in 2011. The number of Hindi speakers in contrast rose from 36.99 per cent in 1971 to 43.63 per cent in 2011.
Lost ‘Odia pride’, no organised movement
Veteran journalist Sandeep Sahu said an absolute absence of an organised movement since the one seen in the 19th century, has made Odia vulnerable to being hijacked by Hindi language and culture.
“This is mostly because we don’t take sufficient pride in our language, heritage and culture. And because of our liberal and less parochial attitude, we are vulnerable to influences of outside cultures. In marriages too, we have started following north Indian rituals like ‘Sangeet’, ‘Mehndi’, ‘Haldi’ etc. which are not part of Odia tradition,” he told The Federal.
Odisha in 1895 witnessed an intense language movement to oppose the introduction of Bengali language in school education.
Also read: Geocultural make-up that spurred Karnataka’s ready acceptance of Hindi
“In fact the movement itself was inspired from the renaissance that other Indian states were witnessing in the 19th century,” said historian Kharabela Mohanty.
Social reformers and litterateurs like Madhusudan Das, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Radhanath Ray and Gangadhar Meher spearheaded the movement, which led to the proliferation of Odia literature and convinced the British rulers about the state’s rich culture and antiquity. This eventually culminated in the founding of a separate Odisha province on April 1, 1936, the only Indian province to be formed on the basis of language in the pre-Independence era, he says.
Naveen Patnaik example
With the state missing the same firepower today, political analysts say the issue of language or Odia nationalism haven’t also qualified as an issue that politicians can use in their campaigns.
Sahu cited the example of former chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who despite being in power for 24 years, didn’t bother to learn the language.
“In rallies, when Naveen would make mincemeat of Odia language, people would clap. And when he lost the elections, he lost it for something else, and not for his lack of proficiency in Odia,” Sahu said, hinting at the row over Patnaik’s ex-aide VK Pandian, which is said to have led to his defeat in the 2024 Assembly polls.
“Once, when I asked a BJD spokesperson why Naveen doesn’t learn the language, he quipped ‘Naveen babu logo ki mann ki bhasha padh lete hain (he knows the language to people’s hearts) and that is all that matters’,” he recalled.
Also read: Hindi 'imposed' in Gujarat, too; it began in 2014, Gujarati bears the brunt
Achilles’ heel
Even though Odia was accorded the classical language status in 2014 during Patnaik’s rule, he had little credit in it as the classical tag was the product of a longstanding struggle to give the language its due, said Sahu. Patnaik, in fact, did more damage than good, he added.
“Naveen realised Odia was becoming his Achilles’ heel when a language movement was started by Subhash Patnaik in 2017. While Naveen’s strategists broke up the group, some amendments that were made to the language act due to the movement (like mandatory sign boards and official work in Odia) were not followed thereafter. Naveen personally interfered to remove a clause that mandated punishment for officials who refused to work in Odia,” he observed.
Analysts say the new BJP government is only keeping the status quo.
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“Learning Hindi by will is different from learning it under compulsion. For example, when NEP is implemented, if those in Balasore, the district bordering West Bengal, would want to take Bengali as the third language, they wouldn’t be able to do that in all likelihood due to scarcity of teachers. It is clear which language will fill up the space,” says Das.
As the phrase goes, “Nature abhors a vacuum”.
