Today I had a verbal tussle with one of a lecturer of Hindi language. He was talking about the IT paper in the Language study. Soon, he was praising the efforts of the Government of India in promoting the language on the net by providing the different resources. He was quite excited that the some times back Sonia Gandhi had issued some softwares on the languages.
jutted into the discussion and objected to the enthusiasm shown by him. I pointed out that there was not doubt that the government of India had tried to bring some devices on the net as well softwares which could help the people of language to use the computer for their literature but most of the were not user friendly. In order to substantiate my claim I pointed out that through various centuries of the C-DAC the government of India had tried to make the Hindi literature available on net. But the manner that it was displayed on the net, they are not user friendly. They do not run on Window 98. It is a big shortcoming. Secondly they are mostly given in PDF. They are not shown in HTML. But the lecturer countered me by praising the government. He said that there was glimmer of hope.
I objected to his positive approach to the changes which were taking place. I pointed it out that he was not able to see that it was being done in a very unimaginative manner. It was done merely to show that well we were also in computers and IT or in short ICT. But if a common man want to use these resources, he will be forced to learn something of engineering or the IT technology. Whereas, the IT technology has in its power and range, the ability that any one, who may not have any understanding of this technology, can make use of the resources. The government has overlooked this aspect.
I pointed out the case of Munshi Prem Chand stories. The stories had been posted by Raman Kaul on his portal after borrowing it from C-DAC site. The difference between his work and C-DAC is that any novice can read the stories of Dhanpat Rai on the site of Raman Kaul with any of the operating system. Whereas, in case of C-DAC portal you need only specific DOS and specific fonts to read them.
However, the lecturer, did not accepted my version. He was happy with the fact that Hindi is on cyberspace. He was happy that there are some softwares which are freely available from the government offices and he has some friends in bureaucracy from whom he can procure those resources. He does not know that how far this technology has come and how fast it is improving and changing. He does not have the understanding that visiting Internet does not solve your problem. You can not get what you desire only by wishing it on internet. It requires some experience and understanding to exploit the potential of internet for particular purpose. But before that, it is required that the information and data which could be exchanged through Internet should be made available in a manner that it could be used and accessed by all the people without any hindrance of any kind. But no, there is peculiar tendency among the Indians to accept whatsoever is given. There is absence of ability to change or modify or demand a thing in a particular form. There is a peculiar colonial mindset which they are ready to shed. There is peculiar mindset of a slave which is not ready to go away. There is peculiar tendency to praise a thing out of promotion and decry or criticize a thing without understanding the actual dimensions. I may be called of criticizing and not appreciating what is being made available. But, those who can understand, they can support me that the manner it is being made available is rather making the mockery of very idea of using IT to share the information and promote the cause of a language.
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