Mansukh Mandaviya, who became a minister in the Modi government, is being continuously targeted by a so-called elite class of the country because of his poor English.
In fact, this is the problem of the entire Indian subcontinent, whose DNA has rotted during a long period of slavery, bending the backbone of its self-respect.
A few years ago, during the Champions Trophy taking place in England, Pakistani captain Sarfaraz Ahmed was continuously trolled for his poor English. Sarfaraz's example is not singular because even in our own country, those who cannot speak English are looked down upon. If an Englishman were to make fun of those who do not know English, it would make sense, but Sarfaraz was being mocked by people who, during the era of slavery, abandoned their mother tongue not once but multiple times to adopt the language of invaders. When Bin-Qasim arrived in Sindh and Debal, these very intellectually corrupted people started reading Arabic, abandoning their own language, just to flatter him and get the jizya tax waived. Then, when Mughal and Turk invaders came, they learned Persian and Urdu to kiss their feet and sing praises in their courts. Then the British came, and they strapped the baggage of English onto their backs like donkeys. Amidst all this, these wretches did not even realize when their own deva-bhasha Sanskrit was declared a "dead language".
Suppose the England team comes to play here tomorrow — can you even imagine that he would answer the media in Hindi or any of your regional languages, and if he failed to do so, his own compatriots would troll him?
How many symptoms of slavery still remain within us — this entire Mansukh Mandaviya episode is merely a small example of it. What kind of inferiority complex is this, due to which you feel ashamed to speak Hindi at an airport, and even when you do not know good English, you deliberately sit with an English magazine or English newspaper just to impress your co-passenger (who unfortunately possesses the same slave mentality as you)? If someone is with Indian culture, Indian attire, and an Indian language, they are a wonder to you; but if the exact same person is in a suit-boot, speaks good English, you say, "Wah, what an educated man, and he speaks English like we have never heard before."
What kind of mentality is this, which looks down with ridicule upon a Brahmin who knows the most complex and scientific language, while that very same class considers someone who butchers English by using 'have' instead of 'has' to be a great scholar? Mansukh Mandaviya
Knowing more languages is an indicator of a developed human brain, and since English is established as a global language today, knowing English is also necessary. Therefore, speaking or writing in any language, including English, is not bad; what is bad is carrying the arrogance of that language to insult one's mother tongue, to troll those whose knowledge of languages other than their mother tongue is limited. Mansukh Mandaviya
Learning different languages, including English, is an imperative of the present age — do learn them, but do not place any of them above your mother tongue, nor subject anyone to humiliation because of it. Unfortunately, this linguistic inferiority complex in India extends from Parliament to the streets.
Firaq Gorakhpuri had mastery over three languages: Hindu, Urdu, and English. He had such command over English that he often used to say that in India there is only one and a half men who know English — me, and half a Nehru. Do you know that Firaq, despite having such mastery over the Anglo tongue, never gave English precedence over his Hindi?
When you first came into your mother's lap, remember — in what tongue did your mother, your maternal grandmother, your paternal grandmother, your paternal grandfather, and your maternal grandfather first call out to you? Were they expressing their love to you in English? In which tongue did you first call out to your mother? The tongue, the language that God gave us, the language with which we called upon our mother — who is God's representative on earth — and the language in which you and I received all the pampering and affection of childhood: if anyone feels ashamed to speak in that language, there can be no human being more unfortunate and luckless than them. And when herds of such unfortunate souls number in the millions and crores in this country, then we must ponder where we are heading.
If this mentality continues, you will find ministers who are Harvard-returned intellectuals, but intellectually degenerate, who mistake India for 'India' while native, rural leaders like Mansukh Mandaviya, falling prey to an inferiority complex, will step back.
Bharatendu had stated long ago,
Nij bhasha unnati ahai, sab unnati ko mool....
