Declining patronisation for Telugu

Though many issues beg our attention, there is one that calls for our earnest support to protection of Telugu language itself. Sneering for, and even contempt to speak in one’s mother tongue speaks of Telugu people’s depravity of self-respect and loss of pride in one of the sweetest and classical languages of the country. In disrespecting their mother tongue, the Telugus are risking loss of identity, rich cultural heritage, emotional connect, and even respect from others. Unless government, educationists and parents and politicians take their responsibility seriously, the language faces threat of extinction. We, all, should take a pledge to spread the fragrance of the language, thus paying a befitting tribute to people like Gidugu Venkata Ramamurthy whose birth anniversary (August 29) is celebrated as Telugu Language Day. 

These days, many things are happening but what to write about is the biggest question this week as politics is becoming murkier. By the time you analyse one situation something dirtier is emerging, leaving everyone aghast as to how morals and ethics have gone for a toss.

It is painful to see how politicians are behaving and are more concerned about themselves and not the people or their interests. The focus is on how to protect their properties and how to escape from various cases – not how to serve the people.

If one looks at the manner in which the systems had collapsed, more so, in Andhra Pradesh, it causes deep concern because this week three grave issues have cropped up. One is the case of doctor-turned-actress Kadambari Jetwani who was allegedly kidnapped and harassed not by some private people but by AP police and how some senior police officers including the then chief of intelligence were said to be involved in it. Well, since the investigation is on, one needs to wait before we discuss the pros and cons of it.

Then comes the case of some miscreants fixing hidden cameras in girls hostel in Gudlvalleru in Krishna district and how the college tried to hush up the case and how the present government took a serious view and constituted an all-women probe team and directed that the probe should be over by Tuesday and that the report should be submitted to the Chief Minister only. Not just that, the CM also directed the police that they should update him once every three hours on the progress of the case.

Before one could react to this, another issue cropped up. It is alleged that the previous YSRCP government allotted nine acres of land to Senani Subhramanyam Trust of which the then advisor to the government Ajay Kallam Reddy is the trustee and the trust wanted to construct another private temple. The issue is now in AP High Court.

Well this being the situation, this week there are two important issues which I thought are fit for Bold Talk. There is an urgent need to protect and promote Telugu language and another is to talk about green and blue concept to encourage green cover which has become more of a routine government mela rather than taking it up in a mission mode. During monsoon, crores of rupees are spent on these programmes without proper planning. In the last five years, plants were imported by the previous government, which emanate more of carbon dioxide.

So, finally I decided that this week it would be better to discuss about the greatness and sweetness of our mother tongue Telugu and the need for protecting and promoting it. This assumes high importance because if we do not wake up now, we face the threat of the language becoming extinct.

August 29 was Telugu Bhasha Dinotsavam but the tragedy is that barring a few official and some private programmes, no Telugu person even made a mention about it. One wonders if the students of the two Telugu states know anything about Gidugu Venkata Ramamurty whose birth anniversary is celebrated as Telugu Bhasha Dinotsavam. If a vox populi is conducted, I am sure 99% of the students will draw blank face.

That is our misfortune. This is a sad commentary on our education system and the poor vision of the politicians in the two Telugu states who have failed to create pride in promoting Telugu, which is one of the classical languages of India and the fourth largest spoken language after Hindi, Bengali and Marathi.

Gidugu Venkata Ramamurthy Pantulu was the most revered figure in Telugu literature. He was a pioneer of the reform movement and strived to simplify and modernise Telugu language which till then was heavily influenced by Sanskrit, which was difficult for the common people to understand. Most of the literary works were written in archaic and complex style and it was his hard work and determination which gifted the Telugu we all speak and understand easily now.

But unfortunately, hardly anyone now knows about him or speaks about his contribution to the Telugu language. A lot of damage has been done to the language, more so in the last two decades. Thanks to the advent of pizza and burger culture, the language got corrupted. We forgot using words like “Amma,” and are encouraging words like ‘mummy’ which got further shortened and now it is ‘Mom, Dad,” etc. In fact, a situation has arisen where women take objection to be called as ‘Amma’, thinking that it is a term used for very old people. They forget that in India, the word ‘Amma’ is used for mother, for Goddess Adi Parashakti, for rivers etc with great reverence.

Telugu was hailed by the Sri Krishna Devaraya, the emperor of Vijayanagara who reigned from 1509 to 1529, as “Desa Bhashalandu Telugu Lessa,” (which roughly translated means Telugu is an excellent language. This of course cannot be the exact expression) The 15th century Venetian explorer Niccolò de’ Conti called Telugu the ‘Italian of the East’ after visiting Vijayanagara Empire as many words in Telugu end with a vowel sound, similar to that of Italian language.

Our textbooks praise the king who attacked us as ‘Alexander the Great’ but they do not use such words for Alluri Sitaramaraju, Rani Rudramma, Komaram Bheem or any such great freedom fighters. Thanks to the lack of vision of our politicians and those who frame the policies pertaining to syllabus, 90% of the students would not know who those leaders were and what their role was in freedom struggle of India.

We had also seen how some misguided politicians and parties like YSRCP in Andhra Pradesh, which converted all schools from SSC to CBSE claiming that only English can make one compete in terms of knowledge. This shows their ignorance that knowledge and language are two different issues. One should learn English but not from cradle as they thought.

If we see the post Independence history, from the former PM of India Lal Bahadur Shastri, former President of India Abdul Kalam, Morarji Desai, Jayaprakash Narayan, former Chief Justice of India N V Ramana, former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, to present President of India Dr Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they all had their education up to high school or even degree level in their mother tongue.

The former chief minister N T Rama Rao had put in a lot of efforts to see that Telugus got their own identity across the globe. But the successive governments failed to continue that legacy and went back to giving prominence to English. Hardly any administrative work is done in Telugu. These days barring those from organisations like Isha foundation, Brahmakumaris or Hare Krishna Movement, people hardly use the salutation ‘Namaskaram.’ It is ‘Good morning, good afternoon or good night.’ We need to learn from Tamilians and Kannadigas who take great pride in speaking in their mother tongue though they are well- versed in other languages.

Even in North, top preference is given to speaking in Hindi. See the Japanese, the Russians, French, German etc who prefer to speak in their mother tongue with pride even from international platforms. But we have ignored our language to such an extent that today no leader can speak for 5 minutes from public platform without using English words.

When it comes to legislatures, one needs to appreciate the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla who speaks in simple but pure Hindi and one should also admire the Speaker of AP Assembly Ayyanna Patrudu who has started conducting proceedings in pure Telugu. He does not say “those in favour may say yes,” he makes the members says yes or no in Telugu language. Unless the government, educationists and parents and politicians take the responsibility seriously and speak in their mother tongue in their houses, the language faces threat of extinction.