02-09-2008, 08:33 AM
Bodhi can you enlighten me about this person?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The early twentieth century also marked the deliberate creation and crystallization of Hindi speakers' identity mediated through Hindi curriculum and texts. At this point, the contribution of Acharya Ramchandra Shukla, a teacher at the BHU, is worth mentioning. For, he not only shaped the format of the syllabi of Hindi but also "defined the heritage of Hindi language and literature in a manner that few have dared to quarrel with" (Kumar 1990: 180). His book Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihas ('History of Hindi Literature'), first published in 1929, gave a distinct Hindi identity to the Hindi heritage:
It is my opinion that Hindi and Urdu are two very different languages. The Hindus of this country speak Hindi, while Muslims and those Hindus who have studied Persian speak Urdu. Sanskrit words abound in Hindi as Arabic and Persian words abound in Urdu. There is no necessity to use Arabic and Persian words in speaking Hindi, nor do I call that language Hindi, which is filled with Persian and Arabic words (Ramchandra Shukla, quoted in King 1994: 23).
The deliberate construction of Hindi-Hindu identity has been rightly highlighted by Kumar, when he says:
Shukla went well beyond the territory of the literary historian, and took a strong ideological position indicating the irrelevance of the Urdu-Persian tradition for the development of modern Hindi. He ignored major Urdu poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in his otherwise meticulous chronology⦠In an autobiographical essay, Shukla had written that his father had good knowledge of Persian and he used to enjoy mixing lines of Persian poetry with the lines written by Hindi poet. Ramchandra Shukla gave no signs, either in his history or in his other prolific works of literary criticism, of having either taste or tolerance for this kind of mixture. By denying the literary works written in the mixed Hindi-Urdu tradition a valid place and status in Hindi's literary history, he performed a decisive symbolic act in shaping the cultural identity of college/educated men and women for generations. The identity Shukla gave to the Hindi heritage was a distinct Hindu identity. His appreciation of a Muslim poet like Jaisi, and his acknowledgement of the achievement of Premchand, who symbolized the confluence of Hindi and Urdu at a time when the two had traveled far apart, made little difference to this. (Kumar 1990:180)
http://www.languageinindia.com/march2003...stani.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was he influential?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The early twentieth century also marked the deliberate creation and crystallization of Hindi speakers' identity mediated through Hindi curriculum and texts. At this point, the contribution of Acharya Ramchandra Shukla, a teacher at the BHU, is worth mentioning. For, he not only shaped the format of the syllabi of Hindi but also "defined the heritage of Hindi language and literature in a manner that few have dared to quarrel with" (Kumar 1990: 180). His book Hindi Sahitya Ka Itihas ('History of Hindi Literature'), first published in 1929, gave a distinct Hindi identity to the Hindi heritage:
It is my opinion that Hindi and Urdu are two very different languages. The Hindus of this country speak Hindi, while Muslims and those Hindus who have studied Persian speak Urdu. Sanskrit words abound in Hindi as Arabic and Persian words abound in Urdu. There is no necessity to use Arabic and Persian words in speaking Hindi, nor do I call that language Hindi, which is filled with Persian and Arabic words (Ramchandra Shukla, quoted in King 1994: 23).
The deliberate construction of Hindi-Hindu identity has been rightly highlighted by Kumar, when he says:
Shukla went well beyond the territory of the literary historian, and took a strong ideological position indicating the irrelevance of the Urdu-Persian tradition for the development of modern Hindi. He ignored major Urdu poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in his otherwise meticulous chronology⦠In an autobiographical essay, Shukla had written that his father had good knowledge of Persian and he used to enjoy mixing lines of Persian poetry with the lines written by Hindi poet. Ramchandra Shukla gave no signs, either in his history or in his other prolific works of literary criticism, of having either taste or tolerance for this kind of mixture. By denying the literary works written in the mixed Hindi-Urdu tradition a valid place and status in Hindi's literary history, he performed a decisive symbolic act in shaping the cultural identity of college/educated men and women for generations. The identity Shukla gave to the Hindi heritage was a distinct Hindu identity. His appreciation of a Muslim poet like Jaisi, and his acknowledgement of the achievement of Premchand, who symbolized the confluence of Hindi and Urdu at a time when the two had traveled far apart, made little difference to this. (Kumar 1990:180)
http://www.languageinindia.com/march2003...stani.html<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was he influential?