01-11-2008, 01:31 PM
Bharatvarsh,
A couple of weeks back, I had the opportunity to meet a senior journalist who writes equally frequently and well in Hindi papers and English. He told me that initially he used to write only in Hindi and his writings used to evoke a huge response from readers, and only in last 5 years he was forced to switch to English because that kind of response was not coming from his Hindi writings anymore. So now he writes essencially in English, while writing in Hindi is a labour of love only.
In his assessment, the reason of downfall of not only Hindi but all other Indic languages too, is that the language of leadership became English. Leadership not only political, but also economical and cultural. A Indic educated student is hugely disadvanged when faced with English-medeum student. S parents now place children in English medeum only. Result, declined quality of Indic schools. That is the reason no 1 for decline of Hindi/Indic.
He said that in the people in that last 30 years have been conditioned to think in English and therefore the elite minds and thinkers are only able to produce a meaningful intellectual debate/discourse in English. Such thinkers writing, reading and responding in Hindi and most other Indic languages is limited now. (He said Tamil, Kannada, Marathi still have that status and capability in their respective state). That is second reason and effect of the first.
Third reason he sited was the attitude of media. He has been in close association with Dainik Jagran as well as TOI. TOI of two decade back used to be totally different from what it is today, he said. As soon as TOI was taken over by the B&C, and jain brothers came to lead it, the first decision they took was to close down 6 hugely popular publications in Indic languages (Hindi+Marathi). This included the best selling Hindi new weekly Dharma Yuga founded by illustrious Dharmavir Bharati, and hugely popular teens Hindi magazine 'Parag'. The reason, he said were not commercial, because these 6 publications were generating enormous profits for TOI beyond a large part of healthy revenue. Reasons were different. New multinational management wanted to see TOI as an "English" publication leader and to have nothing to do with Indic. (TOU now has two Indic papers still - one paper in Hindi and one Marathi)
He also told another sad thing, that Dainik Jagran is going the same road as TOI went a decade and half back. After the death of DJ's founder Sri Narendra Mohan a few years back, who was a passionate writer and journalist, the management is now in hands of foreign-educated Gupta cousins (his nephew/son), who have probably not read one single Hindi book all their lives. They are concerned only about profits and nothing else. The brothers even admit, that TOI is their role-model. So if DJ is still showing the traditional nationalistic shades in its content, it is because of the old staff of Narendra Mohan days, and after this, who knows what will be the shape of DJ!
A couple of weeks back, I had the opportunity to meet a senior journalist who writes equally frequently and well in Hindi papers and English. He told me that initially he used to write only in Hindi and his writings used to evoke a huge response from readers, and only in last 5 years he was forced to switch to English because that kind of response was not coming from his Hindi writings anymore. So now he writes essencially in English, while writing in Hindi is a labour of love only.
In his assessment, the reason of downfall of not only Hindi but all other Indic languages too, is that the language of leadership became English. Leadership not only political, but also economical and cultural. A Indic educated student is hugely disadvanged when faced with English-medeum student. S parents now place children in English medeum only. Result, declined quality of Indic schools. That is the reason no 1 for decline of Hindi/Indic.
He said that in the people in that last 30 years have been conditioned to think in English and therefore the elite minds and thinkers are only able to produce a meaningful intellectual debate/discourse in English. Such thinkers writing, reading and responding in Hindi and most other Indic languages is limited now. (He said Tamil, Kannada, Marathi still have that status and capability in their respective state). That is second reason and effect of the first.
Third reason he sited was the attitude of media. He has been in close association with Dainik Jagran as well as TOI. TOI of two decade back used to be totally different from what it is today, he said. As soon as TOI was taken over by the B&C, and jain brothers came to lead it, the first decision they took was to close down 6 hugely popular publications in Indic languages (Hindi+Marathi). This included the best selling Hindi new weekly Dharma Yuga founded by illustrious Dharmavir Bharati, and hugely popular teens Hindi magazine 'Parag'. The reason, he said were not commercial, because these 6 publications were generating enormous profits for TOI beyond a large part of healthy revenue. Reasons were different. New multinational management wanted to see TOI as an "English" publication leader and to have nothing to do with Indic. (TOU now has two Indic papers still - one paper in Hindi and one Marathi)
He also told another sad thing, that Dainik Jagran is going the same road as TOI went a decade and half back. After the death of DJ's founder Sri Narendra Mohan a few years back, who was a passionate writer and journalist, the management is now in hands of foreign-educated Gupta cousins (his nephew/son), who have probably not read one single Hindi book all their lives. They are concerned only about profits and nothing else. The brothers even admit, that TOI is their role-model. So if DJ is still showing the traditional nationalistic shades in its content, it is because of the old staff of Narendra Mohan days, and after this, who knows what will be the shape of DJ!