LANGUAGES FOR THE MASSES AND CHINESE LANUAGE IN INDIA
Indian linguistic identity is simultaneously partial and plural. With as many as 1,652 mother tongues recorded by the 1961 Census and each of the fifteen major languages recorded in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution marked by different dialects, sociolects, styles and registers, and represented by eight major and a host of minor scripts, the Indian linguistic scene is representative of the multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural Third World. Since the audience of the media is defined bye language use, languages of the masses assume special importance not only from the point of view of communication but also for education, administration and nation formation.
The Chinese in India have never been treated as unwelcome immigrants nor has there been any racial conflict in spite of the difference in speech, dress character and institutions. As is observed by a critic, the Chinese community, 'being too weak to excite antagonism...has met with indifference, the natural and appropriate punishment, or as it considers it, reward, of its non-assimilating disposition. Speakers of Hakka dialects, the Chinese in India are shoemakers, opium sellers, carpenters, cabinet makers, and hogslard manufactures. They are also dentists, restaurant owners and beauticians.
Both 'languages for the masses' and 'Chinese languages in India' have implications for one another.
Language for the massesThere are more than 2,000 languages in the world. All languages have their dialects, sociolects registers, and styles, and, therefore, are not homogeneous communication fields. On this ground, many scholars have sought to decry many languages as communication barriers. This is not borne out by facts. Although only standardized varieties of people's languages are used for education, administration and mass communication, the non-standard varieties are also used for oral and sometimes for written communication. All these are variously integrated in different countries of the world. For example, the spoken languages in contact may result in a chain of continuous intelligibility, thereby ensuring communication in each two successive points. The use of different scripts may help maintain a language, as in the case of Sanskrit, and use of genetically related scripts gives a sense of solidarity, as in the case of Indian languages in spite of their affiliation to different language families, or the one script as in the case of English and Chinese. Scripts provide a second fiddle for communication to the literate and accentuate distinctions between the literate and the illiterate. The standard languages in multilingual countries may ensure a degree of elite communication, whereas communication between the elite and the masses suffers in each case. The non-standard varieties show a greater degree of differentiation but permit a degree of autonomy to each group.
Language of the masses are sources of primary socialization of the human child. Their loss or suppression is bound to create sever emotional strain. And yet, instead of talking about management of diversity, planner often speak about minimising diversity. Such attitudes have resulted in the denial of status to the minority and minor language speakers and consequently to inequality in economic opportunities and political power.
Like air, water and land, language is fundamental to human existence. As better organized societies, by establishing control over land, water and air, deprive human beings born equal of their equality, so is the case with language. In India, out of the 240 million workforces, 40 million are in the organized sector. These 40 million hike their earnings and gain all privileges by virtue of their organized strength. Not to speak of the people at large, even the 200 million in the unorganized sector are exploited by those who are organized. In the world, out of the 2,000 languages, 200 may be in the organized sector, standardized, and used as the ally of power, and hardly 20 of them are in the elite class enjoying privileges at the cost of the many languages of the people. It is because of this that minor and minority languages are coerced to assimilate themselves with the majority, and the mother tongues are under constant threat of annihilation. This explains the death of languages all over the world and the deprivation and decimation of cultural heritages all around. This also explains why French was prohibited by law in Louisiana, why one non-Russian language cannot translate into another non-Russian language without going through Russian, why Spanish rather than Guarani is the official language of Bolivia, and why Hokkien speakers of Singapore are taught Mandarin in order to end up having to use meaning, seen form this perspective. As those in power and privilege are afraid of the uncharted path in which the world will go if principles other than those established for nation building are permitted to operate, similarly languages of power and privilege are afraid of giving recognition to the languages of the people and worried about the new structures that may arise out of the alliance of small cultures and small communication zones. The future of mankind depends on the resolution of problems such as these.
Chinese and Chinese Language in India
A study of the demographic profile of Chinese communities in India shows that the number of Chinese is dwindling. The Chinese who numbered 14,607 according to the 1961 Census had become 10,958 by the 1971 Census. Known as the Chinese or Chini, they are primarily concentrated in Calcutta (West Bengal 7,873) and Bombay (Maharashtra 985). The States of Tamilnadu, Gujarat, and Bihar have more than two hundred, and Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Andra Pradesh and Goa, Diu and Daman have more than one hundred. Thus, sociopolitically this community is an insignificant force, both in the context of India and in that of the constituent states.
Indo-Chinese cultural contact and trade relations are very old. Buddhism had been one of the major cultural links between the two countries. It is said that the first Buddhist monastery was established in Loyang in A.D. 66. It was called the White Horse Monastery. The Chinese Travllers Fahien (A.D. 399), Hieun Tsang (6th century A.D.), and it-sing, who followed two hundred years later, left valuable records that are helpful in writing the cultural history of different regions as well as of the country as a whole. Hieun Tsang's visit had great academic significance. He even became the head of the famous Nalanda University for a whole. But what is more important, the traditional route between India and China via Upper Burma and Kamarupa had been closed since A.D. 342 and there was need for an alternate route. Hieun Tsang's visit through Laddakh provided this alternate route, though somewhat long and winding.
As regards trade relations, Subhani saya, 'regular and steady trade floated through the entire Himalayan range. From Leh in the West to Sadiya in the East, the southern slope of the Himalayas was dotted with a chain of marts in Laddakh, Lahaul, Spiti, Garhwal, Kumaon, Nepal and Kamarupa where traders across the hump met periodically to barter the products for their countries' (Subhani 1966 : 39-46). The friendly competition between Harsha and Bhaskar Burman in according reception to Hieun Tsang was to strengthen the ties with China in the interest of improved trade relations.
Northeastern India saw the intermixture of Mongoloids, Austroloids, Dravidians and the Aryans between 900 and 600 B.C. Buddha, a Licchavi, is supposed to have belonged to a Mongoloid tribe (Gogoi 1968 : 37). Buddhism, which embodies in itself the Tai democratic traditions, represents a Tai-Hindu cultural synthesis.
Mahesh Joshi (1981 : 10-11), basing his facts on the History of Civilization of Assam (Choudhury 1961) writes,
'between 6th century B.C. and 2nd century A.D., there was close communication and even greater mobility among the peoples of Yunnan, Tibet, Thailand, Magadha, Burma and Ceylon through Assam. In fact, during this period there was a great southward movement of the Tai people of Central China. Emperor Shi-Wang Ti destroyed their traditional home by his conquests. In 214 B.C. he even abolished the study of Confucius. He burst upon the Tai people as an avalanche and demolished their entire socio-economic structure. During the next two centuries the Tais moved into five directions. Those who migrated to Thailand are known as Thais; those who went south are regarded as Laos; those who somehow managed to hold ground in Yunnan are called Pais; those who dashed to Burma came to be known as Shans and those who slipped into India are known as Ahoms'.
It may thus be noted that the history of Chinese immigrants who came to northeastern India several hundred years before Christ and established themselves by vanquishing the Austric groups living in that territory has been discussed in fragments by various scholars (Barua 1951). The second wave of immigrants resulting from the Indo-Chinese invasion are represented by various groups in the Garo, Lushai and Naga Hills of Manipur. The most important among them were the Bodos, who built strong kingdoms and left their imprint on the culture of the entire area until they were hemmed in from the eas by the Ahoms and from the west by the Aryans (Barua 1951 : 17). Scholars have debated whether the present-day Assamese are "unmistakenly Mongoloid" (Risley 1969) or "modified Mongoloid" (Elwin 1944). Whatever it may be, there is no denying the fact that the bulk of the indigenous population of the valley and the hills carry unmistakabel traits of the assimilation of the Chinese, the Tibeto-Burmese, the Shans, the Austrics and the Aryans.
Although overseas Chinese spread form Peru to the Philippines, and are concentrated more in Southeast Asia (Deshpande 1960), their number in South Asia is insignificant despite the extensive contact. What is still more interesting is the absolute low profile and anonymity the community has maintained in India. Although the community has engaged itself in the restaurant business, dentistry, shoemaking, hogslard manufacturing and trading, and has prospered, it has made little impact in the general cultural scene in India. The KMT policy of "where there are Chinese there is China" has not succeeded in pulling them any closer than the communist government's Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. In any case, since the People's Republic accepted the policy of non-interference in the affairs of their compatriots abroad, the overseas Chinese were free to follow their own destiny.
The three groups of Chinese in Calcutta, the ship carpenters, the shoemakers and the hogslard manufactures, after periods of fierce competition and social ostracization of one another finally were tied up in matrimonial bonds. The social origin of all these groups is shrouded in mystery. Whether a Cantonese trader faced with the prospect of losing his property in reprisal came to India and established the first settlement in Calcutta, or a drunken shipmate, left by mistake, decided to settle down and formed the nucleus of the Calcutta colony, or some Hakka businessman laid the foundation of the colony at Calcutta is a matter of idle speculation in the absence of definitive records. Why the lone Chinese temple built at Calcutta in the early days should have chosen the war God Akuanti as the deity defies explanation. Whatever it may be, with the establishment of the temple, there is no denying that the Chinese became a community in the true sense of the word.
Today the Chinese in Calcutta can be proud of three or more temples and three Chinese schools up to the sixth standard each. There are no such schools elsewhere in India. The Chinese in Calcutta claim to be descendants of Hakka, Cantonese, or Hupa speakers. There are few Indian-Chinese marriages. Whenever such marriages take place they are against the wishes of the parents. When the father is a non-Chinese, a Nepali, or a Bhotia, he is lax about the socialization of children. Mixed marriages are to be seen in such homes. The Chinese, in addition to the traditional trades listed above, have taken to setting up beauty parlors and saloons.
During the years between the formation of the People's Republic of China and the consolidation of the communist government, mainland China succeeded in creating a sense of pride in the overseas Chinese about the communist government's achievements even though it may not have succeeded in earning their loyalty. A study of Malayan insurgency and the Indonesian-Chinese exchanges on the issue of Chinese immigrants clearly shows that neither is mainland China interested in creating and supporting overseas Chinese insurgency nor is it interested in trying its own bilateral interests to the issue of the policy of any state toward the overseas Chinese. Under these circumstances, it is futile to search for political implications of the insignificant Chinese presence in India.
Most Chinese in India are Hakka speakers. There has been no study of the Chinese language in India no of the pattern of their language use. However, a children's song that was used by non-Chinese children to chide their Chinese playmates in Calcutta refers to their use of pidgin English:
Chin chin Chinaman
Muchie muchie
Sad me afraid
Brokee broke
Shutty shutty shopand excerpts collected from the writings of the English of the nineteenth century about the Chinese in Calcutta further supports this conclusion of the existence of a pidgin.
(a) "Pray excuse me, what may be your honourable surname?"
"My insignificant denomination is Cha."
"Meaning a pig."
(b) "Why for you no bring your wifey?"
"How can do?"(c) "The chopsticks on the table are "making look see."
(d) "Oh, it would be too muchy 'spence makey bury."
(If old men are prematurely killed.)Polite verbal exchanges among the Chinese ad the English, as is reflected in the above statement, is neither guided by familiarity, sincerity nor reciprocity. The Chinese had to take recourse to an indirectness in expressions which helped them maintain their distance. This indirectness in expression, is dictated by their mother tongue constructions, conventions of literalness among other processes of pidgin formation and inadequate mastery of English by both the Chinese and Indians. Culture maintaining processes also help in this.
A sociolinguistic study of the Chinese language in India is bound to yield valuable insights about the language as well as social integration. There is marked identity between the overseas Chinese and overseas Indian populations, with regard to maintenance of language, culture and religious identities. The link with the very remote past is not very important whereas the link with the recent past or rather historical past, traces of which are preserved in language models, culture and religious identities is very important, and zealously graded. Political identities is very important, and zealously graded. Political institutions and trends in the mainland will be watched with interest but are not allowed to interfere with the current status of the community, a little sympathy but no preference and no involvement. In India, the desire to retain and maintain the Chinese identity is matched equally by the desire of other communities to allow them retain and maintain their identity, as a continuation of the already existing mosaic. Principles of accommodation and adjustments in all walks of life along with a silent insistence on separate identity are a model for other to follow. Languages for the masses, and languages of the masses are thus preserved and beneficially canalised.