Roots: The Importance of Proficiency in Indian Languages for Young Hindus

Jataayu
4 min readJul 31, 2024

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It is utmost important that all Hindus in India, especially the younger generations develop good proficiency in at least one Indian language that goes beyond just being literate. It could be their own mother tongue or the language of the state or region where they are resident, given the reality of internal migration within India for a variety of reasons. They should become familiar with the literature of that language, not just the movies, TV channels or newspapers. More than anything else, this alone will detoxify the younger generation of Hindus from a lot of colonial and anti-Dharmic influences coming from the mainstream English medium education in India.

Why? This is because, despite few centuries of colonization, the literature in the languages of India still retains its Hindu core in a big way. Not just classical literature, this is largely true even with the modern writings. Reading the works of modern writers like Rabindranath Tagore, Subramania Bharati or SL Bhyrappa in the original would impart such tremendous sense of culture and rootedness among the youngsters, much more than the cosmetic attempts through social media with superfluous content that are very popular and pervasive.

Of late, many urbanized and educated Hindus seem to think that English+Sanskrit will give them the complete understanding of Hinduism. They are totally wrong. Without the much needed intimacy with the Hindu Dharmic and Bhakti literature of one’s own mother tongue or an Indian language, the study of complex Sanskrit texts, Veda, Vedanta and other philosophical polemics can easily give way to one-sided and skewed understanding. Not to speak of the intellectual arrogance that springs up with Sanskrit learning, particularly the kind that comes from tactical “crash courses” aimed at teaching only religious texts and doctrines, leaving out Kavya and general poetry that is very much a part of the original traditional curriculum. This has created a bunch of people who can be called English Shastris for want of a better term :) Their shallow and confused understanding of many aspects of Hindu Dharma become very much visible on many occasions. Often, these are the people who give out literalist, dogmatic, obscurantist ideas in the name of tradition and Shastras.

They study the Sanskrit texts with the help of English translations and English commentaries, with guidance from English speaking Gurus. Nowadays, we have quite a few Hindu Dharmic teachers and Acharyas who give all their discourses and do all their writings only in English. They are not comfortable in any Indian language beyond casual conversation. This has led to a notion among such teachers and their students that the vast corpus of Hindu literature in the non-Sanskrit Indian languages is somewhat redundant and is nothing more than translations or echoes of the Sanskrit texts. The English medium ‘Vedanta classes’ and ‘Gita classes’, while serving the good purpose of bringing Hindu wisdom to educated populations in India have also contributed such notions as a side effect, unfortunately.

The texts in the Bharatīya Bhaṣa-s represent the true soul and spirit of the living Hindu spirituality. They have their own unique splendor of Hindu spiritual wisdom and beauty, as each of them are born out of the unique spiritual experiences of the great sages who composed them. Hindu masses, even the semi-literate ones in every region received their religion only through such texts. Ramacharitamanas of Tulsi Das, Tirumurai and Divya Prabandham of the Tamil Shaiva and Vaishnava saints, Abhangs of the Marathi Warkari sages and other such influential texts in every language have much more sway among the vast majority of the Hindus compared to the Sanskrit texts.

The more rooted Hindus have always received their basic religious education through their mother language only. It invariably comes from a family which has not become Anglicized in its day-to-day activities and cultural life, though everyone may be English educated at different levels. This gives way to a religious and cultural outlook that is more enriched, balanced and well-rounded in comparison with the above-mentioned types. There are also Acharyas and teachers who deliver their discourses in Indian languages. In fact, their erudition, personality and presentation are even better than the English Gurus in many cases. But their following has been mostly among middle aged people and not among the youngsters. This is because of the lack of proficiency among the youngsters mentioned in the beginning. It appears that English is progressing towards domination in the last bastion of Hindu religion and spirituality also, after establishing its dominance in all other fields like administration, secular education and digital services in India. This is going to be a very big loss and handicap in the coming times.

Of course, all this is for those in India. For others like NRIs or Western Hindus, English or some other non-Indian language remains the only recourse, and it is OK for them to pursue a flavour of Hindu Dharma that may not have a strong and nuanced Indian cultural component. In fact, in their case, we should be thankful for the very fact that they are learning and practicing Hindu Dharma. We see that some of them are enthusiastic to also learn Indian languages including Sanskrit. All power to them.

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Jataayu
Jataayu

Written by Jataayu

Writes on Hindu Dharma, Hindutva, Tamil literature, Indian society, culture, history and arts. Technology Professional.

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