It is a sad commentary on the State of Maharashtra that its government has denied permission to 4000 Marathi-medium schools (DNA,16/11). During the British Raj the language of administration was English and this had created a barrier between the people and the state. After Independence, the linguistic states were formed to bring the state close to the people and to promote various languages of the country. The craze for English in country today has divided it into two nations, India and Bharat, which do not understand each other. The superiority complex exhibited by the English speaking people in the country has created an inferiority complex among the people who speak the local language including the politicians who want people to forget their language, its great literature and culture. Mahatma Gandhi and the freedom fighters would have been appalled by this complex.
The state seem to forget that health,literacy and creativity are the keys to progress, not any particular language. The progress made by countries such as Germany, Japan, France and other European countries illustrate this point.Even the tiny Israel is proud of its language, Hewbrew, and it is being promoted.
How can we have swaraj (freedom) and suraj ( good governance) without our own language for communication? Kaviraj Rabindranath Tagore wrote his Geetanjali in Bengali and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. One can express his innate thoughts and feelings only in his mother tongue. Those who write in English mostly think in English and their knowledge of their own language is poor.They become strangers in their own country.
It is relevant to mention here that the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) has awarded the second prize to an illiterate dalit farmer Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade of the Nanded village in Chadrapur for his innovation of nine rice varieties. Forbes magazine of USA has named him as one of the seven rural entrepreneurs who " are changing the lives of people across country." His HMT variety of rice is grown on one lakh hectares in five states. This is the potential of our country. This potential could be harnessed if the government provides health, education and credit at low rate of interest to all our villages. NIF has a long list of over a lakh of innovators in its data base who are mostly uneducated.
President Obama recognized he inventive genius of India when he told the parliamentarians that : " Indians unlocked the intricacies of the human body and the vastness of the universe. And it is no exaggeration to say that our information age is rooted in Indian innovation including the number zero." Of course he was referring to Aurveda and our heritage in mathematics and science. All this was done in our own languages - Sanskrit and regional languages.
Then why do we suffer from an inferiority complex ? Is it our faulty education ? I leave it to our readers.
http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_4000-marathi-schools-denied-permission-in-maharashtra_1432822
*****
