Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Indian Institute of Management Indore director professor Himanshu Rai has said that it is time to pay attention to the state of the Hindi language.
Sharing insights about the difference between a country and a nation during the Hindi Diwas celebrations at the institute on Wednesday, he said that a country had a geographical land mass, people and sovereignty. “In contrast, a nation has a fourth element added to it—culture. This is the foundation on which we should generate a new, just and vibrant world and language is the underpinning for culture. It’s time we started focusing on the nation and paid attention to the state of the Hindi language,” he added.
“We’ve changed, and so has our culture. We, as human beings, have personal ethics and values, but we are oblivious to social ethics. Love and respect exist in society, but we hardly express them. We’re ready to struggle and have the power to overcome challenges, but we don’t have direction to find solutions. We don’t want to solve problems; we want to break everything against us. We must gain moral and social values. This is possible only when we stay connected to our roots, and Hindi plays a significant role in this,” Rai went on to add.
Rai noted, “All our epics are in Hindi and Sanskrit and echo our rich culture full of morals, principles, ethics and values that hold our nation together. Acknowledging the state of our Hindi language will enable us to use our power in the right direction, thereby giving our lives a purpose.”
Speaking about the significance of Hindi in educational institutions, he said it was essential to understand the difference between being literate and educated. “A person may not be literate and may not even know English, but he may be efficient in leadership, decision-making, risk management and even have a solution-oriented thought process, only if given a chance,” he said. He encouraged the IIM Indore community to respect not only Hindi, but all Indian languages.
Senior journalist NK Singh was the chief guest on occasion. He said, “We often create a set of norms that decides who our icons are and, thus, also generate a process to identify these icons. Hindi Diwas reminds us that there’s a very palpable differentiation in society’s economic, political and social existence, and languages here play a vital role,” he said.
“Even though 75 per cent of the people of the nation speak Hindi, it hasn’t attained the respect and position that permits us to express our love for the language. We need to equalise the system that discriminates between rural and urban, rich and poor, educated and uneducated based on their language.”
The 2022 edition of IIM Indore’s annual Hindi magazine, Gyaan Shikhar, was also released on this occasion. The contributors who have presented the best articles were also felicitated.
