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Comment by ravirajx7 | Hacker News Reader

It's not just that. Ever since he has got his position he is trying to promote India's ethnic values and culture and he's not saying "Bhaiyo aur beheno bas hindi bolo" ( brothers and sisters just speak hindi) and nobody is imposing the language hindi on anyone. But if you're living in a country and serving people(working in government sector) where almost majority of the people speak hindi don't you think you should have some sort of understanding to treat the people in their own language? I live in india and i have seen situations where people find it easy to grasp hindi than any other languages. Out of all those 1600+ language majority of them resembles and sounds like hindi ( just few accent differences are there) rajasthani, marwadi, mewadi, Bhojpuri,urdu, Haryanvi all resembles hindi i.e. if you know even a little bit of hindi you can deal with majority of north indian languages.

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It's perfectly fine to choose Hindi over English in Hindi speaking states (North India). But why some North Indians demand that South Indians speak in Hindi because it's our "national language"? That's where this Hindi imposition becomes a problem. South has it's own languages, cultures, food. I get the feeling that BJP wants whole of India to follow North Indian version of Hinduism.

Hindi is taught is schools...its you who dint gave it importance its not about what benefits you get from speaking Hindi..its more about what most states prefer to interact in.

Out of 39 states 20 prefer interacting in Hindi..even when they all have different mother tongue. Its just the minority south states prefer speaking in there languages which doesn't matter to other as no migrates there( non existent)

> where almost majority of the people speak hindi

You understand that this is not regionally uniform, yes? The 40% Hindi speakers is not "40% Hindi speakers in any given region"; it is "40% Hindi speakers overall", where most of the Hindi speakers live in the northern states and various cities.

> i have seen situations where people find it easy to grasp hindi than any other languages

Again, this is highly regionally biased.

But If there is a better utility for a language like English, why not push for English + Regional Language?

As a South Indian, there is no utility for Hindi other than to interact with North Indians (which is more or less non existent) or to watch Bollywood movies. English got me a job, everything I learn is because of English.

Hindi is taught is schools...its you who dint gave it importance its not about what benefits you get from speaking Hindi..its more about what most states prefer to interact in.

I speak Hindi, and I have studied in the south. I think the best argument to lance this boil is this

“Let’s speak Tamil or kannad. These states are doing supremely better than all of the Hindi speaking states. Obviously language has something to do with our success, and it would be wrong of us to keep it to ourselves when it should be used to help the nation.”

This short circuits enough wires, and is polite enough to not engage the depressing flame war that is sweeping such discussion.

It’s not logical, but most of this argument is not logical, the proof of which is too much for the margins of this comment.

A correction, it is kannada not kannad :-)

Not saying you are wrong but it doesn't make sense to me. Hindi is not the native language of any of the states anywhere in India. They all have multiple native languages. The whole language issue is because of the unfortunate language politics in South India but the same flames could be fanned in any part of India believe me. For example in my state (Rajasthan) I am pretty sure there are at least 4 dialects. What's amazing is that nobody is offended if we keep using a foreign language to do all the mediation but as soon as the majority understood Indian language is mentioned everybody is up in arms. I am forgetting the name but a recently passed away Tamil celebrity had made a famous satire on this situation, where everybody must speak in Persian.

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