HindustanTimes ePaper - Beyond Lip Service - Sitaram Yechury

HindustanTimes ePaper

Beyond Lip Service - Sitaram Yechury

newindpress on sunday - News Items- Erecting baffle-walls of Sanskrit

newindpress on sunday - News Items



Erecting baffle-walls of Sanskrit
Saturday July 28 2007 14:45 IST

Jyoti Sanyal

Mohan was furious with Chhanda: �The other day you said Brahmins were the first Taliban. It�s always been the stupid Leftist fashion to be anti-Brahmin. But that�s going just too far, you know.�

Even though Anjum habitually baits Chhanda, he now rushed to her defence: �Let�s see it in context. Hinduism�s the most catholic of all religious systems�-yes. But Hinduism�s gone through several phases of fundamentalism . . . phases of bigotry. And what is Talibanism but die-hard fundamentalism and bigotry? You think of it as something Muslim only because Muslims fundamentalists adopted that name. But fundamentalism is the same mindset�- Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or Christian.�

Mohan wasn�t satisfied. �But why do you say Brahmins didn�t allow non-Brahmins to learn Sanskrit? Valmiki wrote the Ramayana in Sanskrit. By today�s political parlance, he was a dalit.�

�Why go into legend, for which you have no evidence?� said Anjum. �Why don�t you go into records of the pathashalas Brahmins ran? They were open only to Brahmins, surely? Why don�t you look at the Sanskrit centres in Udipi and Mysore?�

�Talking of anti-Brahmin stance being the fashion,� said Deb, �isn�t the very story of Hindu reforms a series of attempts to wrest Hinduism from the grip of Brahmins? Legend has it Viswamitra led the first revolt against Brahmin supremacy. And if you want to ignore legend, early history says Vyasa led a revolt against the Brahmins�-before he wrote the Mahabharata.�

�How do you see Jainism and Buddhism but as Kshatriya-led revolts against Brahminical Hinduism?� asked Chhanda. �And what was Vaishnavism but yet another revolt against Brahminical Hinduism?�

�Exactly,� said Deb. �You label anti-Brahmin stance a �fashion�. It�s been the trend since time immemorial, you know.�

Mr Haran changed tack: �What I don�t understand is this hatred for Sanskrit and the other Indian languages derived from it.�

�That your own linguistic theory?� asked Deb. �Whoever said Indian languages were derived from Sanskrit? All Indian languages absorbed Sanskrit�-yes. Even the Dravidian group of languages did. But Sanskrit was an import. The Indo-Aryans brought it with them.�

�It became India�s elitist language,� said Anjum. �Swamped regional languages and dialects. Tamil was perhaps the least affected. Because it had a glorious literature of its own. Perhaps even more ancient than Sanskrit.�

Deb took us back to the topic: �Trouble is, the moment an Indian wants to discuss anything he considers important, he begins to grope for the tatsama word�-the word that hasn�t deviated a bit from Sanskrit.�

�And what�s wrong with that?� Mr Haran growled.

�But don�t you see,� Anjum said, �that at once shrinks the reach of our language? It raises a wall between those who know some Sanskrit, and those who know none. It creates a baffle-wall between India�s villagers and educated townsfolk. Much the same thing happens when you use sarkari English. If we believe in democracy, we need an inclusive language that everyone understands.�

�Towards the end of the British Raj here,� Deb said, �Churchill told British bureaucrats to cultivate a people-friendly language in their letters.�

�But,� said Anjum, �no one�s even thought about such reforms in India. When will there be a reform of the hideous sarkari language that�s loaded with Sanskritised mumbo-jumbo?�

�Nothing sarkari ever changes,� said Deb. �People force a change. Things will change only when people understand the need for plain language in a democracy. That understanding hasn�t dawned yet.�

�Truth is,� said Anjum, �we�ve never thought about the need to change the way we use our languages. Churchill spurred plain language in Britain. In the USA, reformers like Rudolph Flesch ridiculed Latinate language and spoke for colloquial language all round.�

�That reminds me,� said Deb. �Chhanda, why don�t you read those lines you were quoting yesterday?�

Chhanda picked up Flesch�s book. �It�s The Art of Readable Writing. Says here: �Like everyone else, you spend your life in a world filled with all kinds of bureaucratic, technical, or legal gobbledygook. The only way to fight it is active, daily, unceasing resistance. You must learn to replace every prior to by before; every subsequently by later, every we are endeavouring to ascertain by we are trying to find out. It takes years until this becomes an invariable habit and you automatically translate jargon into English�.�

�That�s it,� said Deb. �His call to reject the Latinate word and his pleading for the colloquial. We need to reject the Sanskrit word and embrace the colloquial.�

�But even our mass media keeps to Sanskritised words,� said Chhanda. �The TV keeps announcing the prayojak for every programme. How much better it sounds when they say �brought to you by . . .� Why can�t they change prayojak into everyday language?�

�Every official designation,� said Anjum, �is still Sanskrit mumbo-jumbo. We have the adhikarta and the upa-adhikarta, the adhyakshya and upa-adhyakshya, and what have you.�

�That happened,� said Deb, �because when we decided to go Hindi, we deviated into communalism. Some fanatics were hell-bent on rejecting plain Hindustani because that contained Urdu words: �India�s State language must not sound similar to Pakistan�s�. And so, we ended up translating everything official into Sanskrit.�

�Only, when it comes to Hindi,� said Anjum, �what most people understand is Hindustani that blends dialects, everyday language, and Urdu�-not Sanskritised Hindi.�

�The plain truth,� Deb added, �is that those who have the power in India are a feudal lot. They never bother about the people. Had we been a democracy, we�d have worked towards a language for the people. It only proves we haven�t even begun to think about democracy.�

The author�s website: www.clearenglish.in

How to take RTI to masses? - The Bihar experiment with Call centers

RTI Act was passed by the Government with the hope that it would provide relief to the common man by making governance transparent. Experience shows that the process of using RTI Act has become very cumbersome. It is too complicated for a common man to use RTI.

The most common problems being faced by the people are as follows:

1. Many people are illiterate. They cannot write RTI applications. Due to this factor alone, RTI cannot be used by a huge section of population.
2. People do not know which Department to approach for which kind of issue. And without this knowledge, it is impossible to file an RTI application today.
3. Even if one knows the Department, there are so many PIOs in the same Department that it would be quite difficult for a person to know who is the right PIO.
4. Even if a person somehow is able to find the right PIO, the PIO refuses to accept application on some pretext or the other.
5. Depositing application fee of Rs 10 is another nightmare. One has to either go in person to the concerned office to deposit cash or make a Demand Draft or a postal order to send it by post. In addition to having a financial cost, it also involves spending a lot of time.
6. If one does not get right information, filing an appeal is even more complicated and tiring process.

In nutshell, it is extremely difficult to file an RTI application or to file an appeal today. This is reducing RTI to be an affair of elite, urban, educated middle class.

How do we take RTI to the illiterate masses in rural areas?

It is possible to do that and to address all the above issues by using simple technology of call centers. It will work as follows:

· The Government will hire a call center and will give two phone nos to the public. One of the no would be RTI Helpline No (RHN) and the other will be RTI Application No (RAN).

· RHN will be an ordinary no with normal call charges. If any citizen wants to get any help about how to use RTI, he can use this no.

· RAN will be a premium no. Anyone who wishes to file an RTI application will call up this no. Any call to this no will be charged Rs 10 in addition to normal call charges for the duration of the call. Rs 10 is the application fee for RTI application.

· So, when a person calls up RAN, he will be asked to tell his name, address, what information does he want and from which Department does he want that information. This conversation will be voice recorded and also typed on computer simultaneously by the call center executive receiving the call.

· If the citizen does not know the department concerned, then the call center staff will help him identify it. But in some rare cases, even the call center staff would not know about the exact department. To deal with such cases, the Government could assign some official to help call center staff.

· Many ordinary citizens may not even know what type of information to ask for. They would just know their problem. Call center staff could be trained to help and deal with such cases. A good amount of hand holding would be required to help poor and illiterate people.

· Once an RTI application has thus been filed, the call center (CC) will take two copies of it and send one copy to the applicant.

· The other copy will be sent to the concerned PIO by one of the following methods:

o If the PIO has access to e-mail, it will be sent through e-mail. This is the quickest and cheapest way to transmit application.

o If he does not have access to e-mail, the application will be faxed to him.

o If he neither has access to e-mail nor to the fax, it will be sent to him by post.

· The Call Centre (CC) will be declared as an APIO by the Government to be able to accept applications and transfer them to concerned PIO.

· The PIO will have 35 days (from the date of receipt of application in CC) to provide information. During this period, the PIO should prepare information and send it to the applicant directly.

· If applicant is not satisfied with the information received, he can call up the CC again and express his dissatisfaction after telling his reference no.

· His dissatisfaction will be voice recorded and typed. This will become his first appeal, which would be forwarded to the first appellate authority in the same manner as the RTI application was done in first place.

· The first appellate will deal with the appeal as he normally does. The results will be communicated to the applicant.

· If the applicant is not satisfied with the first appellate order, he can similarly file his second appeal.

Financial implications:

1. Government will have to share a part of Rs 10 application fee with telecom companies. In order to account for that, the Government may decide to raise the application fee for applications filed through call center by a small amount. But it is suggested not to do that immediately. It would be best to let it run for the first few months with the present level of fee. If the loss of revenue is small, there is no point in increasing the cost of application and cause hardships to the public.
2. Government would get a share in the normal call charges collected by the telecom company for the call duration in addition to the application fee. This amount will partly offset the above loss.
3. Government will need to hire a call center and bear the charges for the same.
4. Cost of transmitting applications or appeals to PIOs or appellate authorities and making calls to applicants for providing information will have to be paid to CC on actual basis. But this is the cost of processing application, for which the Government collects Rs 10 application fee. Therefore, this should not be treated as an additional cost.

Amendments to RTI rules required to implement this system:

1. The CC will have to be declared as an APIO.
2. Acceptance of fee in this manner on phone will have to be included in the rules as an accepted mode of payment of fee.

Benefits of this system:

· Now, even an illiterate person will be able to file an RTI application – citizen can just pick up a phone and speak out what he wants to know

· CC executive will help in drafting right questions for the citizens’ problems

· No need to know the right department or the right PIO. CC will help in doing that.

· No need to make DD or postal order for depositing fee.

· Appeal can be filed on phone

· No need to travel to the office of PIO – accessible from any phone from anywhere.

· Application could be filed in a few minutes against a few days it takes today

· Multi-lingual – people can file applications in their own languages

·