On September 14 every year, India celebrates Hindi-Diwas where the Government of India organise several awards, ceremonies and events to promote the Hindi language across the country.
Hindi Diwas commemorates the day when the Constituent Assembly of India accepted Hindi as the official language of the country along with English. The listing of Hindi as official language took place on September 14, 1949.
While the Indian government celebrates this occasion as an opportunity for a safe solution for national, linguistic unification (though not a perfect one), over a period of time Indian diaspora, have started to look it as an opportunity of celebrating elements of Indian culture.
The celebrations around a language, which is so deeply linked with the Indian identity and the culture, have profound significance for the Indian diaspora living in distant lands away from their spiritual and cultural home – India.
For an overwhelming majority in the Kiwi-Indian community, the fear that their future generations would lose connection with their mother tongue and hence broader cultural attributes is a concern, if not almost debilitating.
This was well reflected in a question relayed to The Indian Weekender’s editorial team by few readers during preparations for the debate between the Kiwi-Indian candidates about the possibility of getting a promise from political parties around the introduction of a compulsory mother tongue language in primary schools.
The concern is rooted in the modern day reality of working parents not getting enough time to spend at home along with their children to possibly inculcate their cultural values.
A helping hand from the state and public institutions including schools is something that these modern day hard working immigrant parents strive for.
The reader was astute enough to suggest that such a provision existed in Singapore, an equal sized developed economy with a comparable multicultural society, to point towards a working example for the policy makers.
It was just a reflection of what many in the community have felt for long and sought a favourable intervention from the government.
The Indian Weekender had raised the question of missing the Hindi language from the list of ten languages proposed in the National Party’s second language policy announced earlier this month.
This was despite the fact that according to 2013 census, the Hindi language had become the fourth most spoken language in New Zealand after English, Maori, and Samoan.
Since then, the number of Indian migrants has increased considerably purely because of new migrants arriving from India, thus possibly elevating the numbers of speakers of Hindi language to third largest in New Zealand.
The Prime Minister had then responded to the query in affirmative to include the Hindi language in schools if such a demand exists in schools raising hopes of many in the community.
This week, and after, members of the Indian diaspora in New Zealand will be celebrating the Hindi language by connecting with organisations and associations engaged in preserving and promotion of the language in New Zealand.
Hindi Language and Culture Trust of New Zealand, which has been at the forefront of teaching the Hindi language to the next generation of Kiwi-Indians has been organising events around celebrations of Hindi language week.
The Trust has undertaken a project to prepare National Hindi Curriculum Document since 2013.
The Indian Weekender will be connecting with all such community initiatives and strengthening their individual endeavours towards the common cherished goal of preserving and promoting the Hindi language in the community.