On the language divide in India - part 1

A long break from writing. I recently discovered that there ARE people who read my posts :) I anyway have stuff to share. Hence I am back!

This article is based on the recent arguments over "imposition" of Hindi on south Indian states. In the interest of brevity I am dividing what I have to say it into multiple portions. Also, as mentioned in an earlier post, apart from commenting about the present state, I will also suggest what I feel is a resolution to the issue.

As always, I am open to being corrected if I am wrong. Let me state at the outset the following:

1. My mother tongue is Telugu. I am extremely proud of being born into it. Sanskrit is another language I respect immensely (maybe more than Telugu?). I am decently fluent in Hindi and English apart from Telugu.
2. I am one of the increasing number of Telugu speakers who lament about the increasing usage of English in daily Telugu speech. Today a majority of Telugu speakers seem to be more comfortable inserting English words (Hindi/Urdu in Telangana) into their daily speech. I am sure this is the case throughout India, with other languages as well. In fact I recently saw an interview of an important Hindu religious leader who is supposed to have been educated in Telugu medium. His speech was possibly peppered with more English than mine! Funnily enough Christian preachers and evangelists seem to be sticking to an almost outdated mode of Telugu, what is called, graanthikam, or one that is found in books.
3. Chronologically, Hindi is a relatively new language compared to the south Indian languages. Hence the amount of "classical" literature in this is less than that in the south Indian languages. I am clubbing dialects like Awadhi (with apologies to the speakers of these "dialects") with Hindi as we know it today. 
4. Due to geographical reasons the northern part of the country has had immense damage caused via invasions from outside - Mongols, Turks, Greeks et al. This has had impact on multiple facets of what we call north India today - language, food etc. For this reason, I believe that what one gets to see in the southern part of the country is actually closer to what was the original Indian version of that cultural aspect. For example, there are certain Vedic rituals which are not retained in memory by anyone outside Kerala. 
5. I believe the Aryan-Dravidian hypothesis is hogwash and is just an attempt to drive a wedge in a land that is culturally one. Point 4 above is another reason I believe the theory is rubbish. 
6. Further, I believe many of the so-called "Indologists", especially westerners are not fit to comment on Indian texts. I will explain why. As many would know, the Vedas were passed down orally for thousands of years without putting them in writing as the pronunciation is almost if not equally important as the text of the slokas. There are Vedic scholars called Ghanapaathis, especially in Andhra (I have not seen them elsewhere) who have committed Vedas to memories. I believe that a lot of Vedic scholars DO NOT KNOW the meaning of what it is they are reciting. The simple reason is that to truly know the meaning one has to be well versed in nirukta and that is a different subject altogether. Also, Sanskrit is a language where the same word can mean different things in different contexts. And to borrow from Rajiv Malhotra's books, the same thing has multiple names depending on the characteristics. For example, the word maa can mean "to me" or it can mean negation. On the other hand paavaka, agni, havyavaahana are all terms used for fire. Also, India's many texts are interlinked. Hence without truly understanding the multiple meanings and multiple sources it is foolish to claim to be an expert on anything related to Indian culture.

Having laid this foundation I will next proceed to build my case as to WHY (in my opinion obviously) south Indians seem to be prefering English over Hindi. I will also put forward suggestions on HOW to remove some apprehensions. Some of the suggestions I have in mind are really long term-oriented, in the sense that they cannot be implemented overnight. I will share these in the forthcoming posts.