Hindi journalism and the emergence of modern Hindi: Part 4

In the initial decades following Independence, Hindi journalism used the language formalised in the pages of Hindi news publications before India attained freedom. The previous three parts of this series reflected on some aspects of the form of Hindi that was emerging in Hindi journals and newspapers. Despite being denied the status of national language, its constitutional status as the official language of the Union was important for Hindi journalism.

. Along with the state governments in Hindi-speaking states, the central government also gave impetus to the process of standardisation of Hindi because official communications, documents and proceedings had to be in Hindi too.

. The backdrop for this was prepared in discussions held in the constituent assembly on September 14, 1949. The result of these discussions took the form of Article 343(1) in the Indian Constitution which states: “The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.” From 1953 onwards, this day has been observed as Hindi Day.

. This was also the phase in which the imprint of Sanskrit on Hindi became more evident as Sanskrit was very useful in building vocabulary for different wings of governance and scientific terminology too. Consequently, government departments and institutions developed Hindi word-lists for different fields which drew heavily on Sanskrit words. This process was further accelerated by the Raghuvir committee which was constituted to introduce the use of Hindi in conducting and recording parliamentary affairs.

. This growing influence of Sanskrit words on Hindi invited its own share of critics. However, such criticism often ignored two important factors. First, the early form of Hindi could be traced to Shaursaini Prakrit which in turn had its origins in Sanskrit. To add to that, various dialects of Hindi like Braj and Awadhi are full of words from Sanskrit. So there is an inevitability about Hindi being influenced by Sanskrit. Moreover, the scientific vocabulary required in contemporary Hindi can immensely benefit from the rich vocabulary and semantic treasure that Sanskrit has to offer. Along with Hindi, Sanskrit is the origin of a large number of words in many regional languages in India.

. Besides the established Hindi newspapers, the influence of Sanskritised Hindi was evident in new entrants like Dainik Bhaskar which began its journey in 1948. The trend was seen in literary language too. However, in the entertainment industry, as seen in Hindi films and their songs, the imprint of Urdu words on Hindi was more pronounced. This could be attributed to the lingual background of people employed in the industry as well as the commercial need of keeping the language accessible to the audience.

. The Seventies witnessed a marked shift in the language of Hindi journalism. It was driven by the ideological thrust of bringing journalism closer to the people. The move was a reflection of the ideological ferment of the Jayprakash movement which inspired a generation of editors and journalists to craft Hindi as a people’s language.

. There paved the way for a newfound confidence in a whole new generation of journalists who preferred writing Hindi as used in everyday conversations. In this context, media analyst Sevanti Ninan ( Headlines from the Heartland , Sage, 2007) recalls Surendra Pratap Singh who not only carved a name for himself in this period but carried the people’s language to Hindi television journalism. Such language was a point of departure from the kind of Hindi used by public broadcasters like Doordarshan and All India Radio .

. These changes gained new momentum in the next decade. Leading this change was Jansatta , set up in 1982. Its language was largely moulded by its editorial leadership. Prabhash Joshi, the paper’s legendary editor, was one of the close aides of Jayprakash Narayan in the 1970s. This association was reflected in the paper’s language and Joshi also borrowed words from Marathi in the pages of Jansatta. The impact of Jansatta ‘s editorial style of reaching out to people in their language could be felt in a slew of other Hindi news publications too.

. However, this process wasn’t influenced by the ideological undercurrents of the Jayprakash movement alone. The need for localisation and expansion of the reach of readership was closely linked to the market logic which was increasingly going to define Hindi media. This was the period when the need to see Hindi media as an organised industry and plan accordingly was felt across marketing teams of media companies. In the new emerging scheme of things, localisation was seen as important for expansion.

. In the last decade of the last century, the triple effects of economic liberalisation, globalisation and information technology left deep imprints on the market and work culture of Hindi media. The language couldn’t be unaffected by these changes and the combined impact of these processes could be seen in the Hindi which is now used in newspapers, news channels and websites.

. If the poorn viram punctuation mark for ending sentence had long lost the printing battle to the full stop in a large number of publications, the 1990s Hindi media opened up to a new world and became a habitat for a hybrid species called Hinglish. It was a ploy to strike a chord with a generation that was growing up watching MTV . Whether it was reader, listener or viewer, in the new media market lexicon, she had become media consumer.

. Gen Next Hinglish was regularly echoed in Hindi dailies and news channels. In fact, the Hindi media began resetting its dialogue with its readers and viewers (read consumers) with altered lingual contours, which cannot be a coincidence. It could be as prosaic as identifying the changing social profile, conversational and consumption patterns, aspirational terrain and demands of its readers. Marketing managers (sometimes doubling up as editors) of a sizeable section of the Hindi media somehow figured out that they had to cater to a section of consumers who, they assumed, wanted news content with generous doses of Bollywood imagery and were allergic to Sanskritised lexicon (much to the dismay of purists). So marketing managers eyeing youth readership (as if it were a monolith) would be nodding when, for instance, Inext (the Dainik Jagran group’s bilingual daily tabloid published from 13 centres across Hindi-speaking states) had a headline in its Varanasi edition saying “ Facility ka naamonishan nahi (No sign of facility, with ‘Facility’ in the Roman script)” and its Patna edition on the same day having a local sports headline saying “ Raj Milk ne Khidipur ko dho dala ( Raj Milk washes out Khidipur, with ‘Raj Milk’ in the Roman script)”.

. For those watching the Hindi media space, it was not a sudden development. Navbharat Times even accommodated its upwardly mobile young Hindi reader on its masthead, where half its name is carried in English.

. In the middle of all these, it’s a paradox worth remembering that besides encouraging uniformity, globalisation also sows seeds of localisation in the market and tends to promote what’s called glocalisation. For instance, with the logic of attracting readers to district editions, some Hindi newspapers started giving space to local dialects in their pages. These experiments witnessed Prabhat Khabar publishing columns in Maithili in district editions in Bihar while Dainik Bhaskar initiated giving headlines in Wagri in Rajasthan.

. Despite going through many inevitable changes, the bedrock of Hindi developed in newspapers and journals in the 1920s still serves as the stable ground for the use of the language in Hindi journalism. It’s perhaps a tribute to its animated nature which made itself open to imperatives of change and modifications. Like many other languages in the world, it underwent significant changes ushered in by age of information and communication technology. Still, its character is very much Hindi, a language of many hues and almost an evolving lifeform.

Hindi journalism and the emergence of modern Hindi: Part 4

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