Language Politics in Nepal -1
Dr. Ram Kumar Dahal
Professor, CEDA, TU
The worldwide process of democratization, the
recent global thrust on human rights, peace and participatory democracy the politics of
foreign aid the growing number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international
non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and several other factors have affected politics
of language in Nepal. Politics in general term is the study of interactions, actions and
reactions among individuals between individuals and groups, and between groups and larger
community what we call nation-state. As language is a voluntary vocal system of
communication between individuals and individuals and between individuals and groups and
socio-cultural phenomena, politics, being a part of the entire social system, does not
remain unaffected by linguistic environment. Language and politics are closely related to
one another and the former is one of the determining factors of the latter. Language is a
powerful tool by which politicians transmits political conceptions, and symbols of
political power, ideologies and values. It is equally important medium of interest
articulation, aggregation and communication, from society to polity and polity to society
thereby affecting decision-making process. During the election, political leaders who
express their views clearly in the public gatherings can garner more votes and popular
support than those who cannot. Political leaders can manipulate ideas through language and
can attract the voters towards their political ideologies and beliefs. As language is a
powerful means of political communication, the choice of words by political leaders as
Robertson views, largely reflects their attitudes, style, capacity, vision and
performance. Language is also related with leadership pattern which is a quality that
signifies the ability of a person or a group of people to persuade and force others to act
or not to act by inspiring them and making them believe and not to believe that a proposed
course of action is the best or correct one. Language, as Michael West sees, is "the
most powerful component of group individuality."
Language is the most powerful factor in bringing
the elite and the masses together for strengthening social and national integration. It
makes a scientific and technical knowledge easily accessible to the people in their own
languages and, thus, helps in the process of democratization, acculturation and
socialization as well as for the creation of new political and scientific outlook. The
political interpretation of language is, in most sense as MC Lean Views has been
considered, "a contest over words, a language game. In to day's globalized world.
Language politics has become a universal phenomenon and has become a quite fashionable
terms which denotes the relationship between the languages and politics and the influence
of the former to the latter. In order to understand the entire political process and
structure, it is essential to study which language citizens utilize for their overall
development. The recognition of a particular language in a civil and political society is
an important aspect of the legitimatization of a particular culture, values, norms, belief
history and a lot of socio-economic and political factors.
In order to study the role or influence of
language/s in Nepalese politics, it would be appropriate to study how the rulers of Nepal,
since the process of unification was started in 1742 by King Prithivi Narayan Shah, have
behaved the language/s of Nepal in particular. Nepali language had played important role
in the unification of Nepal. The inhabitants of Gorkha welcomed Drabya Shah as their
king simply because they no longer wanted to Magar kings to be contitued in power. The
majority Nepali-speaking community and Khasa rulers/Rajas of the small principalities,
i.e. Vaises and Chaubeses voluntarily and psychologically accepted the dominance of Khas
culture and Nepali language and under Gorkha rule of King Prithivi Narayan Shah
(1722-1775) who gave protection to Nepali language. The Khas speakers felt the feeling of
security within the Gorkha Empire. But after Kathmandu valley become the capital of the
entire unified Nepal (after the unification of the three kingdoms of Kathmandu valley in
1768) Newari language was also recognized as one of the dominant languages of Nepal. In
the post-unification days the Shah rulers wanted to strengthen Nepali language, and gave
special protection to it, which was not accorded to other languages. Linguistically and
culturally speaking, the Shahs (1722-1846) and the Ranas (1846-1950) gave special
protection to Nepali language and encouraged its modernization and standardization,
undermining the rest of the languages of Nepal. During the Rana period , the
standardization of literatures, dictionary preparation/making and codification in Nepali
were encouraged and Nepali Bhasa Prakashini Samiti (Nepali Language Publicity Committee)
performed important works and Nepali thus, received special protection in this direction.
With the introduction of multiparty democracy in Nepal in 1951, Nepali continued to play
dominant role both in governmental and non-governmental levels. Hindi also played the same
role in Nepal's southern plains, Tarai where it became the means of instruction in most of
the schools and colleges until 1957. Hindi as a separate discipline was also studied in
language groups besides Nepali, Newari and English in educational institutions. Between
1981 and 1991 the share of Nepali speaking population suffered a sharp drop and the number
of vernacular identifiers have increased significantly in all language groups. There is an
obvious element of alienation from the traditional mode of accepting Nepali silently as a
vernacular Nepali has remained the lingue franca for majority of the population and
all ethnic groups. But among the various traditional ethnic groups as Anand Aditya views,
only a majority of Magars has identified Nepali as their vernacular. All other linguistic
groups have retained their indigenous language as vernacular. Nepali is a language of
inter-communications, of publication, and of governmental communication (Radio,
Television, Post Office, Tele-Communication). It is a standard, state and national
language.
After 1950 various linguistic communities tried to uplift their languages. Hindi in Tarai
and Newari in Kathmandu Valley took the leading roles. During 1951-1960, these languages
enjoyed absolute freedom, though K.I. Singh Government in 1957 ordered the removal of
other languages from school instruction except Nepali (however, some optional languages
were prescribed in school curriculum including Ph.D research. With the dissolution of the
first democratically elected government in 1960 and with the introduction of the panchayat
system in 1962 under King Mahendra, the concepts of Nepali nationalism/Nepalism and
"one nation, one political system" emerged in of which Nepali language became
the part. In course of inculcating oriental nonparty culture, politics and linguistic
sentiments went side by side and linguistic issues remained highly related with political
issues. The Panchayati rulers never accepted Nepal as the multi lingual society, and never
considered language as national property. Language actually was not studied in linguistic
concept but strictly in socio-political sense. In the name of national integration, the
process of Nepalization was launched since 1960. It tried to Panchayatize the language,
culture, and ethnicity. The non-party political system (1962-1989) discouraged other
cultural and linguistic sentiments and no investment on development of language was made.
The Royal Nepal Academy (RNA) and very few research institutes conducted intellectual
researches for the study and survey of languages. Till its alleged involvement in
assisting the Tibetans in their revolutionary Free Tibet movement, the US-based Summer
Institute of Linguistics (SIL) conducted linguistic researches on languages on eastern
part of Nepal. As the concept of democratic pluralism was not encouraged in politics,
philosophy and in language, the non-party Panchayat politicians used Nepali as a lingua
franca, as a medium for the expression of political views and desires. Though Article 10
of the 1962 Panchayati Constitution had provided the Nepalese citizens the right to
equality, it did not specify about linguistic equality. It, under Article 4, has given
Nepali language the status of national language mentioning nothing about other languages.
During 1962-1989, it became the medium of instruction, of media, of parliamentary debates,
of deliberations of the court, etc. Derecognition of local languages, thus, remained the
linguistic feature during the Panchayat period. The New Education Plan (NEP) introduced in
1971, discouraged other languages except Nepali as the medium of instruction in school,
however, some local languages including Hindi and Newari were also prescribed as optional
subjects including high level research . The Marich Man Singh Government dereconized the
degree of MA in Hindi, Newari and Maithili as a basis of promotion. Except Nepali and
English, the Public Service Commission (PSC) recognized no other languages. The linguistic
minorities charged the PSC, the government-owned Sajha Prakashan (SP) and Royal Nepal
Academy (RNA) for not doing justice with their languages. Publication of Newspapers other
than Nepali and English were also discouraged. Radio Nepal stopped the news broadcast in
Hindi and Newari. Except the Hindi movement, advocated by G.N. Singh the leader of the
then Nepal Sadbhavana Parished (NSP) and Manka Khala movement advocated by P.R Tuladhar,
Nepal faced no serious important language movements during the Panchayat period. The
leaders of the languages movements, particularly Padma Ratna Tuladhar, Gajendra Narayan
Singh and Ananda D. Bhatta, criticized the language policy of the Panchayat government and
strongly demanded the implementation of liberal language policy giving equal protection to
all the languages of the nation. But those personalities during the post Jana Andolana
days turned into political activists that brought language and politics into closer ties.
With the dispensation of pluralistic democracy in
Nepal in 1990 after the historic mass uprising and framing the Constitution of the Kingdom
of Nepal 1990 thereafter, Nepal started adopting liberal language policy. The present
constitution, under Art.6. makes a clear distinction between the national language
and languages of the national the national languages as mentioned in Art. 6(i) of Nepal
shall be Nepali in the Devnagari Script which shall be the official language. All the
languages spoken as the mother tongues in the various parts of the Kingdom are considered
as the languages of this nation. The Nepalese citizens under the cultural and Educational
Right (Art. 18), are given the right to protect and develop their language and script; and
the right to establish schools for providing education to the children up to the primary
level in their mother tongue. (HMG, 1992) The post 1990 governments also adopted liberal
language policies. Since 1990, Nepal started adopting liberal language policy. Soon after
the formation of a multi party interim government in 1990, government owned Radio Nepal
started its news broadcast in English, Hindi and Newari. In the post -1990 days, the
democratically elected governments of Nepal tried to encourage the development and
promotion of various languages of the nation. Radio Nepal started its news broadcast in
few other local languages including in Magar and Tamang. In order to encourage other local
languages the newly established Nepal Television (NTV) also started the production of some
Tele-films on small screen in various local languages. Members of Parliament (MPs) have
addressed in their own languages though the Parliament Rules, 1991 clearly mentions that
Nepali should be the medium of expression and parliamentary deliberations. (To be
continued) |
