Navigating India’s language divides FEATURE 04/26/2010

Navigating India’s language divides

FEATURE 04/26/2010 NEW DELHI — When advocate Govinder Singh rose to make an argument in the Delhi High Court this month, he did what no lawyer had ever done before him and addressed the judge in Hindi. Singh’s action was generally applauded for striking an overdue blow against a decades-old rule that insists on English — the enduring legacy of British colonial rule — as the working language of the Indian capital’s top judicial bench. A similar linguistic challenge was thrown down last November by Abu Azmi, a newly-elected legislator in the Maharashtra state assembly, when he opted to take his oath of office in Hindi, rather than the state language of Marathi. Azmi’s reward was to be slapped and roughed up on the floor of the assembly by four state MPs from a right-wing party that campaigns aggressively for the rights of the state’s Marathi-speaking majority.... MORE   Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100426com5.html

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