A few points I want to highlight:
1–Hindi is a great language. The majority of Indians understand / speak it to some extent.
2–We need to differentiate between Hindi and Hindustani. The language of the majority of Indians is Hindustani, not Hindi. Subhash Bose and Gandhiji stresses the need to have Hindustani as the language of India. Those in Hindi heartland appropriated the idea to themselves. They succeeded in substituting for Hindustani the puritanical, sanskritised version of Hindi. This puritanical version had no place for Urdu, Punjabi, Marathi, Bangla, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese words in Hindi. This puritanical version was aimed at retaining the “purity” of Hindi. The result was that:
i)- The South, especially TN, became opposed to Hindi.
ii)–Punjabi Suba demand became strong, resulting in division of Punjab.
3–The Hindi heartland states misused the 3 language formula by choosing, in addition to English and Hindi, the third language as Punjabi, Sanskrit etc. but never a South Indian language. The people in the South had to compulsorily study Hindi. There was clear selfishness and hypocrisy on the part of those having Hindi as their mother tongue. They should have come forward to learn South Indian languages.
4–In order to dispel any doubts about my Hindi credentials, let me state that three of my books have been given national awards by the Government of India; A translation of a Textbook of Surgery, translated into Hindi by me, has been published by the GOI; I have been Chairman, Hindi Committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research. I am 79.
Regards and best wishes for the Republic day.
Dr.M.C. Gupta