Since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has, with only a few exceptions, been consistently speaking in Hindi to connect with the Gujarati people in his home State, whether at government events or election rallies. As these speeches and events are telecast live by news channels, they reach a national audience.
During the campaign to the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, for instance, Mr. Modi addressed six rallies in the north and central provinces and the Saurashtra region. All his speeches were in Hindi; he spoke occasional sentences in Gujarati. Even in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly polls, he mainly used Hindi while addressing over a dozen rallies across the State.
This was not the case before Mr. Modi became Prime Minister. During his nearly 13 years as Gujarat Chief Minister, the majority of his speeches were in Gujarati, which is also his mother tongue.
Normally, a political leader speaks in their mother tongue — at least in their native State. In this context, Mr. Modi’s preference for Hindi to communicate with the people of his home State may seem strange. In April 2017, he explained why he does so, during a visit to Surat to inaugurate a multi-speciality hospital built by a trust dominated by the diamond barons of the city. “I was in a dilemma whether to speak in Hindi or Gujarati, but since you have done such a big job, I decided to speak in Hindi. That’s how the country will know about it,” he said.
During his election speeches in Gujarat, he sometimes switches to Gujarati. At a recent rally in north Gujarat’s Banaskantha, for example, Mr. Modi switched to Gujarati while talking about the inheritance tax and how it will impact the masses. “If you have two buffaloes, the Congress will take away one if it comes to power,” he said. This was done intentionally to drive home a point to the rural dairy farmers of north Gujarat, where dairy farming is a major source of livelihood.
The Prime Minister’s use of Hindi in Gujarat does not lead to much chatter or discussion. This is because first, as a political observer said, Hindi is mostly understood in the State, even by those in rural areas, thanks to the penetration of Bollywood movies and Hindi television serials. Congress leaders Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi would also address the public in Hindi without a translator whenever they campaigned in Gujarat. Second, Mr. Modi is seen as a national leader and not just a regional leader in Gujarat. The common feeling among the public is that he is expected to speak in Hindi as he is the Prime Minister.
In 1960, Gujarat was carved out of the bilingual Bombay State. Ever since, Hindi has peacefully coexisted with Gujarati. There have been no demands that those who live in the State must speak in Gujarati alone. This tolerance, said Pranav Joshi, a Gujarati filmmaker, is probably the reason why Bollywood films do well in the Gujarat market while Gujarati films struggle.
Also, since Gujarat has become a hub for migrants from across the country, there is linguistic diversity. This is best seen in Surat where the civic body municipal corporation runs public schools in Odia, Telugu, Urdu, Marathi, and Hindi besides Gujarati.
According to a retired bureaucrat, though Gujarati remains the primary language of communication in the State, bureaucrats freely speak and communicate in Hindi or English without any inhibition even in the Secretariat. “Chief Minister Chimanbhai Patel used to conduct his Cabinet meetings in Gujarati and English. He would speak in Gujarati with Ministers and in English with bureaucrats,” the bureaucrat said. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who is a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, always speaks in English during government-organised events in the State.
Even in the Assembly, the Governor’s speech is delivered in Hindi. Though a Gujarati translation of the speech is shared with the members of the House and the press, the speech is never translated into Gujarati by a translator sentence by sentence as it is delivered or read.
Gujarat in a way presents a remarkable example of language tolerance where non-Gujarati migrant workers based in any part of the State can freely speak their own language or dialect. Since the State attracts the maximum of migrant workers from north Indian Hindi-speaking States such as Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, Hindi has almost become a second language in Gujarat.
