There are accusations against Nepalese Media that Khas dominated media and news agencies are still remained prejudiced towards the Madhes and Madhesis people. A justifiable incident has been observed during the sworn program of newly appointed Ministers of Prachanda’s cabinet on 23rd of August, 2008 at President House of Nepal. In that program most of the newly appointed Ministers of Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) were sworn into their mother tongue Maithili. However, the majorities' propagandist Nepalese Media were frequently reported, the sworn were taken into Hindi by Madhesi ethnic Ministers. Perhaps they wanted to create similar terrible hoo-hahs that occurred while Vice President Permanendra Jha took sworn into Hindi. This time people did not give importance to the propaganda of prejudiced media reports.
Madhesi people accuse the Khas media men of having some auto- translatable Hindi version sensor control earphone in their brain which gets automatically activated when they appear on any program related to the Madhesis. Hence, whatever the languages (Maithili, Bhojpuri or Awadhi) used by Madhesi fellows, the sensor control the reporters use to converts the language into Hindi only. Due to this technical problem, the reporters always report through their respective media that the Madhesi leaders only speak and promote Hindi. The prejudiced reporters spared propagandas that Madhesi want to make Nepal as a Sikkim or another state of India by promoting the Hindi language, clothing and Hindi performance in national ceremony. Actually, such claims are totally wrong and indicate some mental disorder of Nepalese prejudiced reporters. Thus, the Nepalese propagandist media always try to create disorder and battle between Khas and Madhesis people by manipulating such issues. There are no counter legal actions until now against such propagandists who spread Maithili version sworn into Hindi.
Some of the Madhesis feel more prosperous, prestigious and superior when they act and speak in Hindi. Personally, I am a Madhesi and my mother tongue is Maithili, so I prefer to speak Nepali when I have to speak other than Maithili, because Nepali is our national language and provides a better means of communication in Madhes and other parts of Nepal.
Nationalization and mainstreaming of Hindi is not highly regarded among Nepalese citizens due to the neocolonial grand design of India. Madhesis will not agree to lose their mother tongue and promote or accept Hindi as a means of common language in the Madhes region. Hindi should not be established and promoted as a second language for Madhesis people. I have read some baseless political claims and manipulated Media reports that Hindi is the major means of communication in Madhes and its people, who have other than Nepali mother tongues. It is totally wrong. I and other Madhesis would also prefer to see our own mother tongues such as Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu and Awadhi or Nepali etc., as means of communication in Madhes. We do not have to find or substitute our mother tongues or national languages with Hindi. We are better at and completely comfortable with our own languages.
In addition, there are factsthe Nepalese media use to translate the Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu and Awadhi, etc., into Hindi. People become angry and are compelled to use less popular languages and behavior to oppose andkeep separate our identity from imposed Khas languages and its culture.
There are also problems in Madhesis parts where they suffer from some anti-Nepali language phobic neurosis. Even common Nepali, Madhesi as well as all other indigenous, tribal, etc. people love to listen or act the official works, statements, speeches, discussions, behaviors or communications things either in their own mother tongue or national language Nepali. However, some top Madhesi leaders use Hindi in national events.No one can understand such anxiety. These Madhesi leaders frequently speak Nepali everywhere including in office, interviews, home, radio program and the place of formal-informal communication, routine life, and elsewhere. Why do they not like to speak or use their mother tongue or national language Nepali while they appear in formal national events or ceremony or places such as sworn ceremonies or in parliament?
Now it is a research question to know that why the Nepalese media use Hindi language card against the Madhes- and Madhesi people and why the Madhesi leaders also use the same card against Nepali language or Khas people. Khas claims that Madhesis use Hindi just to please Indian authorities and Madhesis claim Hindi as common language of Madhes. Therefore, the issues are really complex. Hence, the Nepalese media and the Madhesis people have to rethink seriously on the language conflict of Nepal. Otherwise, the language violence will continue, if both parties do not come to an agreement. The nation should urgently focus on amicably resolving the language chaos.
(Mr. Pushkar is affiliated with Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of Nepal)
Mr. Pushkar pursued his Research Master Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Germany under DAAD fellowship program. In addition, he has achieved also an internationally honoured Master Degree in Public Administration from TU, Nepal. Further, he (more...)
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"The Prejudiced Nepalese Media etc" by Krishna Pushkar
Being an ex-Indian and ex-Bihari, that is, from the Indian province just South of Nepal, I can shed some light on contents of Mr. Pushkar's report and his comments. Maithili is the ancient language of the Aryan tribes which entered the Indian sub-continent from the North West through what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's an archaic form of Sanskrit which has not been in use for a couple of thousand years or more. It exists in the written form only because of the Aryan religious Epics like the earliest Vedas, Shutras and Ramayana which are in this language, written in the ancient Sanskrit script, which is the same script used to write today's HINDI. This last Hindi is in no way the mother tongue of all Indians. The Indians in the far Eastern, Southern and South Western provinces of India speak and write in separate scripts, languages like Bengali, Assamese, Oria, Tamil, Telegu, Kannadie, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujrati. Together they account for about 800 million out of the 1.2 billion inhabitants of India. Having said that there is one officially unrecognised language which is spoken and understood in the whole of India, the language of Bollywood, Hindustani which Gandhi wanted to made the national language of India. This did not happen because of its closeness to URDU, the language that became the state language in Pakistan. Now, Urdu means military camp/contonment in Turkish. It developed in the camps of the later Aryan like invaders who came, conquered, settled in and ruled large chunks of India beginning early 12th Century AD. As the centuries went by this Urdu took in words from Persian and many local Indian language and became the language of trade, commerce and governments. It adopted the Persian script which was also used by the Turks throughout the Ottoman Empire. It was the official language within the Mughal Empire up until it was replaced by the British Empire. After what the Brits call the Indian Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 which the Indians call the First War of Independence, the Brits realised that they had to DIVIDE in order to RULE. They started to resurrect the ancient Sanskrit along with English, using the schools and universities they opened in India with the aim of replacing Urdu with English as the official language by demonising Urdu as the language of Foreigners, that is, the language of the Muslims of All India despite the fact that the Muslim invaders had lost all traces of their 'foreign-ness' through inter-marriages and large scale additions in converts from locals over 800 long years. Between 1857 and 1947, the Brits created an unbridgeable wedge between Hindus and Muslims which all ended in the partition of British India into India and Pakistan. Religion and language became the bones of contention. After Independence the Aryan dominated Central Govt of India tried very hard to make Hindu THE Language of ALL India. They faced stiff resistance from the non-Hindi provinces I have listed above. After many years a comromise was reached by making English and Hindi as official languages at the Centre and in the Hindi speaking provinces and the other languages along with English as state/provincial languages elsewhere. Pakistan on the other side declared Urdu as the National Language but this was resisted by East Pakistanis who were Bengalis. Their contention ended up in bloody strife which finally ended in the secession of East Pakistan and Bangladesh was born with Indian help in 1971. Today Urdu is the Official Language of Pakistan and Hindi of the Northern povinces of India. Both are almost the same with the same grammar but with the following differences. Hindi has replaced the Persian, Arabic and Turkish nouns and verbs with nouns and verbs from ancient Sanskrit which is hardly understood even in North India. Urdu is written in Persian script whereas Hindi uses Sanskrit script. In between these two there are 14 main 'provincial' languages in India and 5 main provincial languages in Pakistan. Bollywood uses Hindustani which is the only language understood and still spoken from the Khyber Pass in the North West to Assam in the East And from Kashmir in the North to Kerala in the South. This even holds good right up to Kabul and Nepal. Had not the Brits carved up India in 1947 and with Gandhi's insistence and public approval Hindustani would have been the Language of ALL INDIA.
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syed mahdi (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 93 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Aug 31, 2008 at 11:08:33 AM
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