Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And in difficult matters, repetition threatens to be an even bigger disaster. 'Language wars' have plagued India for decades. Political parties are reviving these fights. They do not seem to care about more fights. They think the situation will not get out of hand. This carelessness comes from ignoring something important. Usually it is seen as Hindi versus South India. But there are many differences between the different South Indian languages, which can be promoted with equal vigour.
This week, there was protest against the sale of Tamil books at the Karnataka legislature's book fair. This is a common occurrence these days. What Speaker UT Khader said was unexpected. He said that to live in a globalised world and broaden our horizons, we should appreciate other languages. This is a very normal thing.
On the contrary, people on social media blow everything out of proportion. With their comments, they promote extremist views just like politicians do. When public buses running between Karnataka and Maharashtra get caught in a Kannada-Maratha tussle, neither the safety of the staff nor the needs of the passengers matter to the 'language warriors'.
India has a history of linguistic animosity, which is fuelled to divert attention from other controversies. For example, the 1983 Nellie massacre in Assam, in which more than 2,000 people died, is one of the many occasions when anti-Bengali sentiments erupted into deadly violence. In America's Silicon Valley, if you go to any coffee shop, you will hear languages from around the world, but this does not lead to any animosity in education, work or politics.
So when Trump orders English above all languages, it is not as threatening as changing the status quo here. Remember how many times migrants speaking different languages have been forced to leave Bengaluru, whether they are going to Tamil Nadu or faraway Assam.
All these battle-mongers deliberately ignore the fact that different languages in our country balance themselves out. Hindi cinema has spread Hindi more than government propagandists have been able to do. Bengal's absurd experiment of eliminating English from primary schools, Mulayam Singh's slogan 'Angrezi Hatao' or the BJP's repeated rants against 'colonial languages' - none of these have been able to reduce people's desire to learn English. Let Indians decide for themselves how they want to deal with their country's linguistic diversity. Don't decide for them.
