A few years ago while searching for
meaning of a term I reached a language forum (portal). Out of curiosity I
checked out if it also had threads related to Hindi language. It indeed had
such a sub-forum for Hindi and many other languages. I found that most members
on the portal were international members who were somehow involved with Hindi
and hence cleared their doubts there by posting queries. Some were even NRIs
(Non-resident Indians), or a foreign-born spouse of a Hindi speaking Indian
member who wanted to know meanings of many Hindi words. There were very few
active members from India who could answer them. And next part of my
realization made me shift in pain:
There were members from Pakistan and
some other Indian Muslims settled abroad who had formed an alliance. They would
dominate any thread marked with “Hindi” and would start discussing Urdu in
those threads even if the thread-starter had no interest in Urdu. They mixed up
Hindi and Urdu and made best efforts to denigrate Hindi against Urdu. They
tried to map all the pitfalls of Urdu (which literally means a military camp)
on Hindi and tried to show Hindi devoid of its rich heritage. For example, they
would claim Hindi is (allegedly) getting extinct and Urdu words are more common
now giving examples from lyrics of Bollywood’s popular songs. They alleged that
Hindi didn’t come from Sanskrit and that Sanskrit was a religious language. All
such false allegations and insertions were to promote Urdu and show Hindi in
worst light imaginable. I tried to counter them for months by posting unbiased
answers. I succeeded in many threads where I defeated them with logic and
evidence. But then I realized that the moderators were also “one of them”!
Moderators tried to harass me with finding small technical faults and coming
out all united with those Pakistani and Urdu members. The only other active
Indian member, who posted unbiased and true facts about Hindi in those forums,
also expressed sadness and disgust at the moderators’ attitude and their nexus
with Urdu-supremacists.
After posting more than 500 comments
and answers, I retrospected that my sane posts were getting lost in the clutter
of those biased anti-Hindi members’ posts. And then I thought about changing
the game itself.
I have started a blog called “Ask
about Hindi” where any member can ask questions related to Hindi words and
Hindi language. I would also like to support if queries in other Indian
languages come, by taking help from my friends versed in those languages. I
know that everyone Googles their questions before posting on forums now a day.
If I continue and keep building up my Hindi-Help blog, it will get popular and
people will get good alternative to that biased anti-Hindi language portal.
Here is my blog for your review and
reference:
If you are interested to contribute
too, please comment or send me your email ID. I may ask you for answers and
your views on some of the queries as and when they come to me. Or if you run
write articles related to Hindi, you can send me links and permission to share
it on this blog too.
Best regards,
Rahul Tiwary
P.S.: I have kept language of
communication in the blog as English along with Hindi, so that all are
encouraged to ask. Also, I may not be an expert in Hindi but I plan to
contribute by sharing my knowledge accumulated while spending 30 years amongst
Hindi speaking population.
Disclaimer: Opinions on this blog are
personal and do not represent those of any organization associated with the
author. You are welcome to share your opinion in the comments section.
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