Chennai Express, Agneepath and a threat to India’s pluralism.

I was in the middle of a midnight scroll when I came across a reel of a scene from the 2007 Hindi film ‘Dhamaal’. It was a supposedly South Indian driver introducing himself to his passengers. As he goes on to state a comically, and unrealistically long name ending, to no one’s surprise with, “Iyer”. Bollywood’s effective reduction of an entire region and its culture to mere comic relief was evident, just as it was unsettling. Not to mention how, in their eyes, only one caste seemed to be worth portraying (a whole other conversation, that). This could have been a passable “joke” if it had been a one-off incident. But just how could I forget Deepika Padukone’s abysmal mannerisms in Chennai Express or the coconut-wielding, “lungi”-clad Krishnan Iyer M.A. from Agneepath? All of these could have still been forgotten had we not been hit with a Rajnikanth shrine-worshipping Meenakshi in 2021’s Meenakshi Sundareshwar. Upon first glance, this recurring gag of aiyyos and curd rice cliches does not look all that significant, but beneath the humour lies a more troubling reality: such misrepresentations are symptomatic of a larger problem—the erasure and oversimplification of linguistic identities in India. When the cultural specificities of the South are reduced to stereotypes for mass consumption, it speaks to a deeper disregard for the complexity of India's pluralistic ethos.

It is not just about cinema. The “saar” memes, the general constant and consistent ridicule of the South Indian identity and this sort of unspoken modus operandi that Hindi is “normal” and anything else is not, is an issue worth contesting. An issue, that is ever emerging in the country’s political landscape as well.

With the rise of Hindutva politics in India, came the assent of Hindi nationalism. Slogans like “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” or “Ek Desh, Ek Bhaasha” furthered the right wing’s proposition of Hindi being our “national language”. Southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, have always been open about their detestation of this idea, and justifiably so. The argument against the proclamation of any one “national” language comes obviously, from a need to protect the region’s historic pluralism, and to prevent the creation of further hierarchies through sectarian politics. However, it is warranted to say that this anti-sectarian movement has started to become an entirely anti-Hindi one, with Karnataka’s increased radicalisation of the Kannada identity and Tamil Nadu’s complete rejection of the three-language formula. This outburst, I believe, comes from a fear of marginalisation, and this fear, I would say, is not entirely misplaced.

800 years, as opposed to Magadhi’s approximate of 2500 years and Tamil’s upwards of even that, is the age of Hindi as a formed and spoken language. Statistically speaking, when the Hindi conch shell blows, some other language is likely to get lost in its shadows. The 2001 census data listed 49 mother tongues (including Hindi) under the broad category of Hindi. In Bihar (where the language ‘Magadhi’ finds its roots), less than one-fourth of the population regarded Hindi as their mother tongue. Bhojpuri and Magadhi had a share of 33.6% and 20%. Despite these two languages accounting for more than half of Bihar’s population, Hindi remains its official language, and is widely regarded as the primary mode of communication. This hegemony is a result of past policies, including the Bihar Official Language Act of 1950, which made Hindi the sole official language, sidelining predominant regional languages.  In addition, census methods tend to categorize these languages as "dialects" of Hindi, further reducing their independent identities and cultural significance.

This Bihar example is demonstrative of a larger trend - the erasure of indigenous identities through the imposition of a standardized language. This trend manifests itself in many of the ruling party’s recent shenanigans, significantly in the renaming of our IPC to ‘Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita’, again a soft emphasis on Hindi as the Indian “norm”. And this is exactly what makes the Southern states’ fear of Hindi imposition largely well placed. This is not to say that Hindi is some sort of hegemonic monster language that should be done away with, but history is famous for repeating itself, and participants of history, for forgetting that. If Hindi were to become the lingua franca of India, it would more likely than not, come at the expense of all the languages that are deep-rooted in this country’s historical and cultural fabric. In addition to undermining their symbolic capital, the devaluation of Bhojpuri and Magadhi to "subordinate" or unofficial statuses restricts their use in the governmental, educational, and public spheres. Thus, will be the fate of a Tamil, or a Telugu if BJP was to succeed in its ‘Ek Desh, Ek Bhaasha’ endeavours. Such policies have far-reaching consequences for linguistic diversity and cultural preservation. By giving precedence to Hindi, the state runs the risk of marginalising regional languages and hastening their decline. The result is a gradual erosion of linguistic heritage and the distinct identities and histories that these languages embody.

The objective behind writing this piece, is not to say that a couple of misinformed comedy sequences in films are the ultimate perpetrator of linguistic hegemony, nor is it to reduce a history of cultural erasure to misrepresentation in commercial cinema. The intention is to outline the soft-power that cinema, especially an industry of Bollywood’s size and legacy, holds in shaping grassroot level discourse in our country. The very grassroot level discourse that holds the power to potentially protect pluralistic linguistic identities in the future. Seemingly insignificant memes and social media trends find their roots in deep-set societal trends and tendencies. For a large chunk of unread masses, cinema is the forerunning medium of knowledge, thus making unseeming misrepresentations rather, for a lack of better words, seeming. With that, I hope when you watch Jahnvi Kapoor’s next Bollywood endeavour titled ‘Param Sundari’, with the tagline – “North ka swag, South ka grace”, you know to take it with as many pinches of salt as possible and cleanse your palate after, with a little lesson on the geography of South India and the myriad of cultural identities and languages that fall under the umbrella term (a little more than just ‘Madras’). Ultimately, however, I hope that when the time comes, we can all, as citizens of this country, make an informed decision with regard to the protection of the ethnic mosaic that is India, and practice the unity in diversity that we so pride ourselves for, and which are currently just some words on some paper.

Written By: Anavadhya

Picture Credits: Picture source - https://in.pinterest.com/pin/27021666508619228/