Misconceptions disrupting the revival of Indian languages

New Delhi: India is a nation of varieties. With 22 officially recognized languages and a countless number of dialects, India flaunts a plethora of varied diversities.

A near 200 years of British rule undeniably corroded the rich heritage with language coming under severe attack of the colonial powers. However, the irony is that Indian languages continue to face the same treatment.

However, the irony is that Indian languages continue to face the same treatment even after the Britishers left.

What makes matters worse is the fact that the number of students opting for English medium schools is escalating by leaps and bounds. Notably, in the last five years, the number of students studying in English medium have doubled.

Surprisingly, it was in the Hindi bastion of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that witnessed this exceptional growth.

Despite the government's plan to implement measures to promote vernacular languages, English became the primary choice of the guardians.

The very idea that education in English would facilitate a job encouraged the parents to opt for the foreign language instead of the language that linked them to their very roots.

Unfortunately, the misconception that the chance of getting a job are much higher if a student comes from the English background has adversely affected our mother tongues.

Promotional campaigns by the government will not encourage people to study in their own language, but assurance of work and livelihood can lure people to read in their native language.

A paradigm change needs to be incorporated.

The inferiority complex associated with studying in local languages needs to be shunned. Rather, one must take pride in studying in the language which he uses for crying, laughing, calling his mother and expressing love.

The wrong notion that studying in English makes one smart pose a tough challenge before Indian languages. Carrying an English novel and flaunting it in public has become an endemic.

Strategic measures need to be implemented to revive our languages. It has to be fiercely promoted that even carrying a novel written in an Indian local language and reading it in a public place also make you look equally smart.