You've read the ATM story, haven't you? If you go into an ATM in Hubli, Karnataka and if you were among those crores of Indians that don't know Hindi, you are highly likely to be surprised by this ATM's user interface being in Hindi and English alone. Yes, there could be more ATMs in Karnataka that provide instructions in Hindi than ones that provide instructions in Kannada. This is a glaring trait of our bank markets that one can notice across the country - banks are yet another channel through which Hindi is imposed upon a large non-Hindi geography of India.
At a time when India is reported to be suffering from poor financial inclusion across the country, the RBI - the central bank that governs all other banks operating in the country, and chartered to increase financial inclusion, sets such standards to these banks with regards to customer services and customer interaction that the banks are all but bullied to perceive better returns in displaying allegiance to the RBI than vowing to serve their customers' original, uncorrupted needs; those needs that require banks to offer services in a language the customer is most comfortable with.
A brief look at some of the circulars issued by RBI to all types of banks in India will tell us what kind of strikingly lopsided a language plan has gone into the making of its language policies. These policies openly declare Hindi alone as the sacrosanct language that banks must accept in undeterred fashion and impede no processes involved in serving customers using Hindi whereas a similar treatment is not even dealt with for 21 other languages listed as Scheduled languages in the Constitution of India.
The very act of making one language mandatory as opposed to making 21 other scheduled languages optional in a diverse market such as ours shows how market agnostic these RBI's regulations are and exposes the undesirable government control over a supposed market transaction. The people of India cannot afford to rest so much control in a banker of banks that remains market agnostic but never fails to uphold aspirations of a central government to promote Hindi in the market.
In fact, it appears from the powers entrusted in RBI, it could well be using it to dole out market benefits to banks as an incentive to promote Hindi usage and service among customers and employees respectively. Being instructed to adopt Hindi enablement as one of its top goals, the RBI finds success in this incentive route. A statement issued by RBI's former governor (Mr Subbarao) backing Hindi usage as vital to increasing financial inclusion in India sent a shocker to anyone who understands a customer's actual needs. This is an unfortunate development happening in an intersection of governance and market.
While imposing Hindi through banks is evidently making financial inclusion a more elusive mirage, RBI has also been making many other things difficult for non-Hindi speaking Indians. The encouragement (and incentives ?) provided to nationalised banks to celebrate Hindi Day, Week and now Fortnight has in a way solemnized this unnecessary and expensive government intrusion into market territory. This has also added on most of India a huge annual tax burden camouflaged under the notion of a mythical financial inclusion, and an even more mythical national interest. In the wake of such Hindi imposing programs inserted by the government into the market, national interest could well be getting compromised, what with the interests of customers being thrown into air. Mahatma Gandhi once said that protection of customer interest should be the top undertaking of any business if it wishes to survive in a market.
In the wake of these anti developments it would be in the best interest of customers, and Indian citizens in general, that the Govt of India ceases to interfere in the operation of banks to this degree where it has to tell them what language must be used and what languages may be used. In a broader sense, the central government must also realize and honor the linguistic diversity in India and stay away from politics of raising the promotion of one Indian language above that of all other Indian languages.
GOI must immediately make appropriate amendments in the Constitution to accord and reflect equality to all languages of this country. To start with, it should first make all languages listed in Schedule-8 as official languages of the Indian Union and the central government.
Hindi imposition is an evil remnant of the imperial touch India experienced during the British era. It is in the best of national interest to shed this diseased skin and let Indian growth happen in its own way - organic or inorganic way.
0 comments
ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿರಿ: | Pass your comment: