I support the ban imposed on Hindi movies, but not the move by some organizations to force Hindi out of school curriculum. The two things are not the same. While mindless Bollywood fare may be a threat to the local culture, and therefore its ban more or less justified, the move to purge Hindi, a language spoken by the largest number of Indians, out of classrooms is unfortunate and smacks of jingoism. It will do more harm than good to the future pillars of the state. Here's why.

From personal experience, I can tell you that a certain level of proficiency in the national language - especially its spoken form - is a must if one wants to be even eligible for the job market in the North and West India. Hindi never fascinated me nor did I feel the need to learn it, save for some rudimentary words that could get me going with the local shopkeeper or rickshaw puller once in a while. This complacency however didn't work when I got a break into journalism, a profession in which interacting with people is not an option but the primary duty.

Soon I realized the disadvantage in my having a limited repertoire of Hindi vocabulary. Not all my sources knew English, and even if they did, they were not as comfortable as when they spoke in Hindi. When people speak in their tongue, they are more articulate and the message they want to put across clearly comes through. Which is not the case with a second language like English that most of the people have learnt only out of necessity - and not because they have been charmed by it. And do you expect the slum dwellers, fruits sellers, bus conductors, etc. - the aam janta to confront you with flawless English?

Even if you hypothetically suppose that everybody knows a reasonable amount of English enough to be able to make intelligible communication, absolutely avoiding one's own language is not a wise decision. Communicating in a foreign language always lacks that sense of emotional bonding and belongingness that native tongue so naturally brings into play between the conversationalists.

If I had any doubt about this fact, it was dispelled after a visit to a call centre in Gurgaon, one of India's hubs of outsourcing. One would have thought that the young workers in a call centre must be eating, drinking and calling English throughout the night while the nation goes to sleep. But I was wrong. I was shown to the company's canteen, and what I found there was quite a revelation. None of those present in the canteen was speaking English; they were chatting away their nocturnal blues in Hindi with animated flourish. For a change, no English please, thank you.

The point is: In the cow-belt of India, how much a person is educated and sophisticated, in his unguarded moments he will revert back to Hindi. When Indians go to their wives to tell how much they love them or vice versa, or when they need to express genuine feelings of sorrow, they will inevitably do so using Hindi words. Mother language flows from heart while a second language from the brain.

Way back in the 1930s and again in the1960s when Hindi was proposed by the Centre, dominated by the politicians whose first language is Hindi, as the official language of India, South India fulminated with anti Hindi protests and submitted petitions to then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The reasons trotted out in favour of Hindi was that it was the single most spoken language in India. However Hindi, by any means, was/is not the language spoken by the majority of Indians for India was a home to several dozens of languages and dialects. In fact, in the south, Hindi was as alien as the Greek language, and the move to notify Hindi as the official language of India was seen as yet another instance of the cultural imperialism by the mainland Indians.

But such cultural concerns are of little importance if you consider how much political currency we lose by way of our deficiency in the language. Since we have acquiesced or rather forced to be a party to the Parliamentary democracy in which an inherent unfairness is inbuilt, we should do whatever it takes to work or even manipulate it to our advantage. Our MPs should speak in a language that the Indian masses can understand, and Hindi fulfils that criteria. To the grassroot population of India, who hold the key to effecting major changes in the government policy, we are foreigners speaking even a more alien language, i.e. English. Our Mongolian features don't help either.

Media houses in India recognize the market value of Hindi and have capitalized on it. Aaj Tak and Star News in Hindi are the largest profit making news networks in India. Similarly in the print media, Hindi language newspapers easily beat their English cousins by millions in readership. Hindi, like sex, sells.

That is why the news of anti-Hindi agitation in Manipur came to me quite as a bouncer. Yes, we appreciate the gravity of the issues facing Manipur - not trivial at all - but pragmatism, rather than emotional impulse should direct our steps in resolving them. Think of the thousands of jobs that will be lost by the Manipuris due to communication problem when Hindi education is banned. Convenience, not ideology should shape some of our policies. Even West Bengal, that crucible of Marxist thoughts, is realizing that rigidity never pays: it has decided to teach English in the government schools and colleges, in order to make the students studying in them more equipped when competing with others tutored in English medium private institutes. (English is to Bengalis, what Hindi is to the Manipuris).

So why should we stop learning Hindi, when it is increasingly becoming a linqua franca in newsrooms, call centers, theatres, Parliament and all other places of significance. One person who knows this well is Sonia Gandhi, an Italian by birth no less, who has started talking to a besotted nation in Hindi. We'd rather start taking cues from her. And no, I have not changed my earlier views about the Indians a bit as expressed in my article "An Indian exposed by an Indian". I am only reiterating that "in Rome do as the Romans do". Meaning in India, speak as the Indians speak. Samjha kya?