In his special interview given on the occasion of Haryana-Diwas, Dr. ‘Manav’ said that the state of Haryana was formed separately from Punjab based on language, but due to the government’s negligence, Haryanvi kept lagging. Dr. Ramniwas’ Manav’, who has spent fifty important years of his life in research and preservation of Hindi and Haryanvi literature of Haryana, is very disappointed with the current state of Haryanvi and says in a distressed tone that till now whatever efforts have been made for the development of Haryanvi, most of them have been done at the personal level; hardly any contribution of the state government or any state academy has been there in them. This is the reason that to date neither the standard form of Haryanvi has been decided, nor has the Haryanvi Sahitya Academy been formed in Haryana, nor is any magazine published in Haryanvi. Then how is the proper development of the Haryanvi language possible?
After independence, Haryanvi was neglected in Punjab, and even after the formation of a separate state from Punjab based on language, the governments of Haryana neither took care of the Haryanvi language nor made any concrete action plan for its development. This is the statement of senior litterateur Dr. Ramniwas ‘Manav’, renowned as the pioneer of Haryanvi literature. In his special interview given on the occasion of Haryana Day, Dr. ‘Manav’ said that the formation of Haryana state separately from Punjab was done based on language, but due to the neglect of the governments, Haryanvi kept on lagging.
He clarified that the so-called litterateurs who spread the false narrative that ‘in the name of culture in Haryana there is only agriculture’ and who have an anti-Haryanvi mentality, with the support of the government, first took control of the language department and then the Haryana Sahitya Academy. The result? Punjabi, which was nineteen times better than Haryanvi at the time of independence, not only succeeded in getting the status of national language by being included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution but is now moving towards becoming a world language due to millions of Punjabi-speaking people living in countries like Britain, Canada, America, Australia, etc. But Haryanvi, which had reached far south India, Nepal, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and many European countries on its own centuries ago, is still struggling to preserve its identity even after seventy-seven years of independence and sixty-eight years of the formation of Haryana.
Dr. ‘Manav’, who has spent fifty important years of his life in the research and preservation of Hindi and Haryanvi literature of Haryana, is very disappointed with the current state of Haryanvi and says in a distressed tone that most of the efforts made so far for the development of Haryanvi have been done at the personal level; hardly any contribution of the state government or any academy of the state has been there in them. This is the reason that to date neither the standard form of Haryanvi has been decided, nor has a Haryanvi Sahitya Academy been formed in Haryana, nor is any magazine published in Haryanvi. Then how is the proper development of the Haryanvi language possible?
Earlier, expressing his anger on the functioning of Haryana Sahitya Academies, Dr. ‘Manav’ said that some people, who have been sitting on the academies of Haryana for decades with the blessings of the government, by misusing their position, not only promoted the bad culture of sycophancy but also hurt the reputation of the awards given by the academies. Those who were not deserving of a prize of Rs. 2500 were given prizes of Rs. 2.5 lakh each; those who were not deserving of a prize of Rs. 5000 were given prizes of Rs. 5 lakh each; and those who were not deserving of a prize of Rs. 7000 were given prizes of Rs. 7 lakh each in bulk. What is even more saddening and unfortunate is that many deserving and truly deserving litterateurs of awards were neglected completely.
Describing the initiatives being taken by the present working president of Haryana Literature and Culture Academy, Dr. Kuldeepchand Agnihotri, and Director Dr. Dharmdev Vidyarthi for the development of Haryanvi language and literature as praiseworthy, Dr. ‘Manav’ has expressed hope that their efforts will yield meaningful and satisfactory results. Describing Haryanvi as the earlier form of Hindi and, in the words of the Central Sahitya Academy, ‘co-language of Hindi’, Dr. ‘Manav’ said that the formation of a separate Haryanvi Sahitya Academy, publication of Haryanvi magazine, standardization of Haryanvi language, and evaluation of contemporary Haryanvi literature are very important. It is not appropriate to limit Haryanvi literature to vulgar songs, obscene raginis, and vulgar jokes.
It is noteworthy that Dr. Ramniwas ‘Manav’, author and editor of sixty important books, is not only the first researcher and official scholar of Hindi literature written in Haryana, but he also has the credit of formally starting the research tradition of contemporary literature of Haryana. ‘Creative Hindi Literature Written in Haryana’ and ‘Hindi Epics Written in Haryana’ are two of his popular research works. ‘Haryanvi: Boli aur Sahitya’ and ‘Haryanvi’ are his two research and critical books focused on Haryanvi. The book ‘Haryanvi’ was written on the request of the Central Sahitya Akademi and was published by the Sahitya Akademi itself under the ‘Hindi ki Sahabhasha’ series.
