Nepali Language
Key To National Unity

By Bala Ram Aryal

THE Constitution of Nepal 1990 states Nepali language as a state language and other languages of the Nepalese people as the national languages. Constitution is the basic law and always tries to reflect the existing reality.

The question arises: What could be the motive behind stating Nepali as a state language? To my mind, it is universal recognition – one of the factors to be a standard and normative language. The term ‘universal recognition’ does not intend to state that Nepali is recognised and used everywhere in the world. Rather, it means it is recognised and used widely in the areas of its speakers. Other reasons behind the above statement might be its historical status, flexibility, and normativeness and literary potentials.

People share the history of their country. So does the language together with other aspects of the society. Historically speaking, Nepali language can be traced back to the last years of the first millennium. Thus Nepali has existed for considerably a long period. However, we should recognise one thing that in the history present day Nepali was not always called ‘Nepali’. Basically, this question is related to the political boundary and political status of a salect group of people. Of course, Nepali had different names in different periods of Nepalese history. For example, it was called ‘Khas Kuri’ because it was spoken by the ‘Khas tribe’ and ‘Parvate’ because if was a lingua franca of the people residing in the hilly region of the then Nepal and, finally, ‘Gorkhali bhasha’ because it was the official and the first language of the state of Gorkha.

In fact, the ‘Khas kura/bhasha’, ‘Parvate’ or ‘Gorkha bhasha’ started to be called ‘Nepali or Nepali bhasha’ only after the unification of all the principalities existing in the territory of modern Nepal. But why did ‘Gorkhali bhasha’ become the first language of the country when there were other prominent languages spoken by the people of the then principalities? Of the many reasons, the following seem to be noteworthy.

First, it was the language almost familiar to all other people or ethnic groups.

Second, "Gorkha bhasha’ was the ‘bhasha’ of the Gorkha rulers who had control over the national economy.

Third, it was the language of the majority of people of the then Gorkha kingdom.

Most significantly, it was a ‘more developed language’ than other languages of over 53 principalities. This hypothesis could be continued. As we see now, Nepali language already had its good literature in various aspects of society. Here, I would like to note that probably other languages also had good literature. But it is not very clear till now.

Prithvi Narayan Shah, the king of powerful Gorkha and the avant garde of the unification campaign had made various farsighted decisions after merging other principalities, especially the Kathmandu Valley into Gorkha. Among them, making Kathmandu as the capital was the most pertinent from geo-political and sentimental standpoint. Another decision was the recognition of ‘Gorkha bhasha’ as a ‘bhasha’ of the whole kingdom, that is ‘Nepali bhasha’ (Nepal’s or Nepalese language).

It can be imagined that the introduction of Nepali as an official or a state language of the country might have aroused some difficulties for other linguistic minorities. But they did not display their disappointments immediately simply because people of the new kingdom easily understood the need and importance of having a language which could serve as a lingua franca for all the people. Other languages lacked such potentiality. They did not transcend their confined community. Moreover, there is a human sentiment and may be sometimes, it is also essential to know and be able to use the so-called ‘big language’ in comparison to one’s mother tongue.

Another aspect of recognising Nepali as a state or official language of the new nation could also be the desire of the people to get more exposure or enjoy better opportunity through the ‘big’ or ‘developed’ language. This idea could be supported by the condition of English language in the country, because English is not our mother/first language. But we like to have some command over English, sometimes even more than our own or second language.

The statistics of 2009, 2028, and 2038 B.S. show that the number of people speaking Nepali as a mother tongue was increasing every year. But those of 2048 B.S. show a fall in the trend. Most probably, 2038 B.S. data was exaggerated. Moreover, non-native Nepali speakers recorded themselves in that category due to the ethnic sentiment even though Nepali is serving them as the first language. But we can firmly say that over 50% of the Nepali citizens speak Nepali as the first language and some 20 to 30% of the Nepalese speak it as the second language. This is evidently no less than their knowledge of their mother tongue. But sadly speaking, some of the national languages of Nepal are spoken only in domestic situations, that is among the family members, or among the ethnic groups in the concerned area. Here we should realise that every language howsoever ‘big’ or ‘small’, developed’ or ‘underdeveloped’ is the national property or heritage. Of course, the main responsibility of preserving and developing any language rests on the government. But people cannot shirk their own. Rather, it is a greater responsibility on our part as the prime carriers of national languages.

From socio-linguistic viewpoints, language plays varied roles in a society. That is, it consolidates, integrates or disintegrates society.

It has also been a tradition to take language as the social factor. True, it is a natural means of human communication. It functions and develops only in the community. Therefore, rejection of natural language by a community and transfer to another can be considered as the process of liquidation of that community.

Despite the seeming likeness, ‘consolidation’ works silently in the process of merging the ethnic communities and helps unite other ethnic groups. But ‘integration’ appears and strengthens in the process of the conscious activities of the society and states are directed towards the expansion of language necessary for inter-ethnic communication and intensifies the formation of national and political communities. These two terms are not antipodes. One does not hinder the activities of the other. Formation of the national and political community may happen simultaneously with the process of national consolidation.

But the disintegrating factor is closely related with that of consolidating, because in reality it represents itself as the reformation of this function which the language fulfills inside the communities expecting the ultimate separation.

Language fulfills consolidating function in the process of ethnic consolidation when some ethno-linguistic communities merge into bigger ones and when languages of these communities play pivotal role the node of ethnic consolidation is accepted by others.

Economic potentially of the community is the main condition for the spread of the language beyond the community. Thus language can play the consolidating function only in a concrete state of the development of the bigger community. So if a community wants its language to be recognised and accepted by other communities, it should first and foremost be economically strong and sound.

Nexus Between Science & Religion

By A. P. Rao

FRUITFUL developments take place at the point where two or more lines of thought meet; irrespective of their roots i,e, from any culture or religion or tradition) Looking at the title of the acticle; it seems that we have to talk about two different things named as science and religion. The two words are different, no doubt but, only at the normal level of thinking. Actually these are the steps or levels of one and the same; that, to what we call as "GOD" or the "Ultimate".

Science is a way of knowing the facts, laws and nature of things through material-experiments. The experiments are such that, once the fact is revealed, any one can repeat it at different places with similar set-up to get same result. The reproducibility of the fact/experiment with identical environment recognises it as a scientific fact. The present science has developed a lot. New facts have been established regularly. This development is such that, what we say is correct today becomes incorrect on the next day. Although science is a path to know the ultimate fact daily development changes the correct to incorrect and vice-versa. Because of this, it comes to our mind that our science has not reached to the final"fact" till date. The game of science is of laboratory experiments. For example, we did not know that light has dual nature. It was considered to be only a wave for years. When in some experiments, result could not be explained by assuming light as a wave, we started thinking what could it be? Then, through some laboratory experiments we could know that light wave is made up of photons, which is a particle. So we talk about dual nature of light. That is, sometimes light shows wave-like nature and sometimes it shows particle-like nature. The question may be, is science able to investigate the property or nature of light. The basic question as to what light really is still remains unanswered. Science has to accept that the particle or the wave is not the property of light. It is the property of our interaction with it. And this is the point where our ancient philosophy and religion comes into the picture. According to which matter appears as we feel-think about it. This is true with the word experiment also. Is it not true that, we do not see every thing around us with open eyes, but see only that which our brain receives or responds? Does it not mean that eyes are not seeing but providing means to see. That means, the function of eyes is to see only but they are controlled from elsewhere.

Now, let us see why science, philosophy and religion look to be different? Let us take the example of present day science only. For the beginners of science there are subjects like physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology etc. then, medical science, engineering science and then technologies. For an uneducated person science is science (i.e. one only), which is not true for the middle order. Similarly, at research level if we look, we find that there is hardly any line of demarcation between any two subjects, which are known to be different at lower level of studies. This is again not true for the middle order. This indicates that we do not find difference either at very low level or at extremely high level. In the same way, when we talk about the search for "ultimate", there would not be any discontinuity among science, philosophy and religion. The "Western" world has penetrated into the science i.e. materialistic development. The "East" has experimented with mysticism. Actually both ways aim at reaching to the same destination. But both are supposed to be in the middle i.e. none of them looks at the ultimate in total. When the two paths are joined, we understand that the last point of science is philosophy, philosophy’s last point is religion and religion moves us to the ultimate, the energy, the whole truth, or the "GOD". Therefore, it may be said that the aim of all, in general, is to know the ultimate nature of matter and energy.

A time was there when modern scientists were reluctant about philosophy and religion with the view that these theories are erroneous, vague and non-scientific. The experts of the other group were also not aware of importance of scientific investigations by saying that this out-ward expansion is of no use. Actually the scientist and mystics, both have always been trying to probe into the final reality of creation. They have been using entirely different path-approaches to know SOMETHING, which is there but unknown! In fact neither the science nor mysticism requires any help from the other for there understanding. But if we want to unfold the facts of the nature efficiently, we must consider both paths/ways by means of having constructive interference among the science, philosophy and religion. By keeping this in mind; it seems to be the need of time that scientific persons should undertake some research studies to enrich the new science through the literature given by old mystics. The spiritual traditions described by eastern mystics of Hindu, Tao, Zen, Buddha etc. may differ from each other in many details (externally) but the direct non-intellectual experience of reality in all of them is essentially found to be same. And this fundamental feature is also a characteristic of modern science. There are a number of fields in new science e.g. space time concept, quantum field theory, quark symmetries etc. whose interpretation about the matter is incomplete in today’s science. On the other hand mysticism and philosophy show that they contain nothing but the scientific explanations of things. The idea of "quantum field" may be compared with ancient "individualised consciousness field" where both are invisible but real and effective. The famous scientist Werner Heisenberg, the founder of the new quantum physics once said that , the mathematically formulated laws of quantum theory clearly show that our ordinary intuitive concepts used in old physics can not be unambiguously applied to the smallest particles. Now the demarcation between physical and metaphysical has been destroyed by quantum science. The criteria that "what can be perceived and experimented" is only "real " had vanished. Experiencing the quantum is now recognised by suppressing "only experiment " concept in the "Royal court of science."

The new generation should be motivated to study the probable correlation among new science, philosophy and religion. That is, finding the explanation of the domain of science, where it is stuck, using mysticism AND finding the explanation of old philosophy and religion in terms of present day science. This is how the proper understanding between them can help to explore the new facts of nature with explanations understandable to all and to reach to the ultimate aim of the life. This sort of study shall also help to bring near the "east" and the "west" and shall be beneficial for the scientific investigators of the future to carry-out the investigations to serve the mankind better.