Doing an internship at the University of Lille in France, I almost always found myself stuck whenever I had to speak to non-Indians about India or on anything ‘Indian’. This was more because of the subtle differences in the way the French understood India in comparison to what I thought was ‘Indian’.
For instance, when I, or any Indian for that matter, say ‘Hindi’ is an Indian language, what it means is that it is one of the languages widely spoken in India. This need not be similar to the understanding that the French would have when they hear of ‘Hindi’ as an Indian language. Because for them Hindi then becomes the only language spoken in India. This is a natural inference that the French, Germans, Italians and many other European nationals would tend to make, because that is generally how it is in their own respective countries.
The risk of such inappropriate generalisations made about ‘Indian’ is not restricted to language alone but also for India’s landscape, cuisine, movies, music, climate, economic development and even political ideologies.
Most often I have felt that Indians should be wary when the term ‘Indian’ is so casually used, because of the risk this involves in missing the country’s sheer richness. Imagine hearing a song in .wav format after converting it to .mp3 format. The conversion doesn’t change the song but only its richness.
The magnitude of diversity of one European country can be easily compared to that of one of the Indian State, isn’t it? Can they imagine that India is one country whose diversity can be equated to that of the entire European continent?
The onus is upon us to go ahead and clarify the nuances in ‘Indianness’ while we converse. But why should one do so? How does it even matter to clarify?
Another interesting aspect: how many Indians would even be aware of India’s diversity from its northern end to the southern region, and from west to the north-east?
In this regard, the Europeans are more often than not far better than us; they know their country better than us. Therefore their love for their own country has more meaning than the hate some Indians have for India!
thomas_tony@iitgn.ac.in
