Keif haalak, habibi? Why Hindi is fine in Dubai, but not in Chennai
When we fly out of the country – be it to study engineering in Stuttgart, perform heart surgeries in Shanghai, or drive taxis in Riyadh – we suddenly become paragons of linguistic adaptability.
‘No Deutsch, no degree,’ says the German university. ‘Ni hao before you operate,’ insists the Chinese hospital. And in the Gulf, if you don’t know the difference between ‘shukran’ and ‘sukran’, you might accidentally thank someone for kicking you.
And yet, back home, the mere suggestion of introducing Hindi as a third language in schools makes our netas recoil as if someone proposed a ban on vada pav and bisi bele baath or a tax on idli-sambar.
Resistance from netas
The irony is thick. An Indian from Tamil Nadu will wax eloquent about the joys of learning Japanese to attend a manga conference in Kyoto. A techie from Bengaluru, no less, will learn French to work for a client in Marseille. A student from Pune will survive on vodka and Russian grammar in Moscow without complaint. But ask them to let their children learn some Hindi – just enough to decipher Bollywood subtitles or the back of a packet of Kurkure – and the entire political class mounts a resistance that would make the Quit India Movement look like a group nap.
Let me narrate an episode from Dubai. I met Aqil Kabital, an Emirati businessman fluent in more Indian languages than an average Lok Sabha MP. Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Tamil, and God help me, even Tagalog (Filipino) and Mandarin (Chinese). When I asked him how he picked up so many languages, he said, ‘From the people I trade with. If I don’t speak their tongue, how will I earn their trust-or their money?’
I sat there stunned while he seamlessly toggled between Hindi and Malayalam with his office boy (a Keralite, of course), and then switched to Mandarin with a visiting Chinese associate. Meanwhile, I was still wrestling with whether ‘bukra’ meant tomorrow (in Arabic) or goat.
Not a linguistic coup
Now, after spending 25 years in the Gulf, I too can manage about 50 Arabic words. Enough to haggle over fish prices, complain about the heat, and locate the nearest falafel or shawarma joint. Not much, but sufficient for basic survival and small talk – which is, incidentally, all we ask of students when it comes to Hindi.
Nobody is suggesting replacing Kannada or Tamil or Telugu or Marathi with Hindi. The three-language policy is not a linguistic coup. It is just a nudge toward national cohesion. But no, for some politicians, even a whiff of Hindi is seen as a Trojan horse from Delhi – one that will sneak in and erase their native identities overnight.
Honestly speaking, it is not about love for regional languages. It is about old insecurities dressed up as progressive federalism. Political leaders fear the rise of Hindi as it could level the playing field between regions. If a Tamil child understands Hindi, how will a Tamil politician weaponize the ignorance gap?
Languages open doors
Back in Dubai, Aqil Kabital said, ‘Languages open doors’. Here in India, we are busy bolting them shut – even if the hinges are rusted and the locks long broken.
Yes, English is the great Indian unifier. But it is also a colonial hand-me-down we have tailored to our needs. Why can’t Hindi-born and bred in our soil play a supporting role in our linguistic ensemble? We are not asking for solos. Just a chorus part.
If we can learn German to read Kafka and Arabic to sell shawarma and kebabs, surely, we can manage a bit of Hindi to talk to our fellow Indians?
But then again, this is India. We are happy to eat momos, celebrate Halloween, and speak Korean to impress K-drama fans, but say ‘namaste’ in Hindi, and someone somewhere will file a petition in the Supreme Court. (Concluded)
