• SURYAKANT NATH

Abstract: After Gandhi was assassinated, Nehru became India’s foremost nationalist. Yet, he only half-jokingly referred to himself as ‘the last Englishman to rule India’. Educated at Harrow, one of Britain’s most rarefied public schools, and Cambridge University before qualifying to be a barrister at London, Nehru and his father, Motilal Nehru were typical Anglicised lawyers who dominated the Indian National Congress before Gandhi transformed them by clothing them in khadi (home-spun cotton). Although Nehru accepted Gandhi’s logic of dressing and behaving like an Indian, he never lost the demeanour of an Edwardian gentleman. On the many occasions when he was arrested by the British and jailed, he would, as a practice, eat cornflakes, fried eggs, bacon and tomatoes before submitting to his captors. Nehru’s Anglophilia stretched much further than his private tastes. The legacy of Nehru’s Englishness was visible in every corner of twentieth century India. It still exists in today’s India. Nowhere is it more prominent than in the sphere of national language. Several of the seemingly bewildering contradictions of today’s India can be traced back to Nehru. Language is a very powerful cultural identity marker. While many of the ills afflicting post-independent India are conveniently dumped on Nehru’s shoulders, was he really the lone individual to be held responsible for all the ills that adversely impacted the growth trajectory of post-independent India? Or is he the lone villain of the piece (as often made out to be) who deliberately forged an unholy alliance with the imperialist masters to further his self-interests and neglect the interests of the nation? This paper attempts to make an analysis of the circumstances in which English was made a link language and how and why Hindi or Hindustani could not find its pride of place as the ‘national language’ among the many Indian languages even though many prominent nationalist leaders strove for it. More importantly, this paper also tries to make an attempt to study if things would have been any different if Nehru had tried to put his weight behind the vocal Hindu group’s attempt to push through the Hindi agenda. Or was it the deliberate inaction of Nehru which resulted in the language mess that the country finds itself now?

Key Words: Linguistic Nationalism, Link Language, Official Language, National Language, Anglophilia, States Reorganisation Commission, Cold-Water Therapy.

"Jawaharlal Nehru and the Contentious issue of National Language", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no.422-430, April-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904V11.pdf

"Jawaharlal Nehru and the Contentious issue of National Language", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no. pp422-430, April-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904V11.pdf