Why do North Indians remain aloof of South Indian culture and society despite living there for decades?

[zen]

People do not expect migrants in Gujarat, Bengal, Assam, Punjab, Rajasthan, etc., to learn those languages, watch movies in native languages, and so on  

 

[Manny_Pacquiao]

21 hours ago, Austin 3:!6 said:

There is one of my friend from Bihar who could only speak Bhojpuri, knew all Hindi gaalis and some broken english. He moved to Bangalore in 2010 and learned Kannada so well in couple of years that he now works in low budget Kannada movies

This guy and @velus poet friend are modern day heroes.

[beetle]

Most people don't seek change if they can get by.

 

If a person who is not interested in languages as such can manage in a new place ,then there is less reason for change.

 

Most people speak the language they do( mother tongues)because they learnt it naturally and not because they have some kind of love for it.

 

Same goes for other stuff.

I know someone in my family who is an athiest but has visited most temples in Tamil Nadu for their architecture. He was posted in TN and used the opportunity to explore the architecture of temples without praying even once at any one.

People who have interest do explore...others don't.

 

Culture is not something we Indians imbibe from surroundings. It is mostly from family and these days....Tv.

 

People from the north do love south indian food and vice versa .

Though most people eat their own type of food on a regular basis.

 

Most educated people who move to north or south manage with english and some basics of the local language.

 

I wonder how the UPites and bihari non english speaking migrant manage in the south without knowing the local language. I have'nt met any non english speaking south indian migrant in the north yet.

 

 

[Gollum]

Full deja vu this thread 

[Trichromatic]

5 hours ago, beetle said:

Culture is not something we Indians imbibe from surroundings. It is mostly from family and these days....Tv.

TV and internet. That seems to be the world atm.

5 hours ago, beetle said:

People from the north do love south indian food and vice versa .

Though most people eat their own type of food on a regular basis.

Idly, dosa and uttapam. What else? 

5 hours ago, beetle said:

Most educated people who move to north or south manage with english and some basics of the local language.

My observation - educated people from north moving to south don't know more than 5-10 words.

[Vilander]

On 6/8/2020 at 3:46 AM, Manny_Pacquiao said:

Tamils and [some] malyalis don't like to admit it, but hindi actually is the national language.

 

Almost 60% of the country speaks it. In time, that number will increase. A language is only as strong as the economy that sustains it, and hindi has the strongest economic and cultural significance of all the 'indigenous' languages.

 

Having said that, the government should encourage more sanskrit - india's one and only 'common' language - along with prioritizing education in tamil and other indigenous languages in primary school.

 

On 6/8/2020 at 6:40 AM, Manny_Pacquiao said:

Yeah, and i explained why. because HINDI IS THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE and north indians act like everybody in the country should speak it.

 

On 6/8/2020 at 9:25 AM, Manny_Pacquiao said:

 

Languages are the keys to unlocking the doors of society. To understand people, you must understand their language. Which is why people with non-tamil/malyali backgrounds are typically seen as 'aloof' - they don't need the language, nor do they bother learning it.

 

There's not much of a need to 'assimilate'. South india isn't some homogeneous territory, and its still in india. A north indian doesn't feel 'foreign' in the south, and vice versa. There's enough in common between people to facilitate interaction. It's not like you're visiting china or the UK.

 

 

Tthey don't show any interest. That's one of the reasons for immigration being a contentious issue in the west

 

On 6/8/2020 at 12:44 PM, MechEng said:

@Trichromatic you need to understand the sacrifices we made as Naarth Indiannss..

 

Thousands of years ago we were pure Aryan race and looked like Pat Cummins but after inter marriage with Dravidian Lemurians we became brown people. Utna hi enough hai...no more assimilation..

 

Might be ignorant tripe not worth countering.  But can be noted in way how it displays why some folks from North of country do not assimilate into the south indian host culture or how they convince themselves feel 'superior' to it. One might wonder why and how for quite a laugh though. 

[beetle]

20 minutes ago, Trichromatic said:

My observation - educated people from north moving to south don't know more than 5-10 words.

If that is enough...then it is fine for them.

People who are not interested in learning languages will not bother.

It has nothing to do with south or north languages.

 

If a hindi speaking person from north learns dogri or gujrati or marathi but does not want to learn tamil....then you can say he has a problem ...but if he does not show interest in learning any other language other than hindi and english( need them for survival and for job),then it just shows his lack of interest in learning languages.

 

Learning new language as an adult is very difficult and there has to be either great interest or incentive for learning it if a person can manage without it.

 

 

 

 

[Manny_Pacquiao]

22 minutes ago, Vilander said:

 

 

 

Might be ignorant tripe not worth countering.  But can be noted in way how it displays why some folks from North of country do not assimilate into the south indian host culture or how they convince themselves feel 'superior' to it. One might wonder why and how for quite a laugh though. 

 

Millions of 'north indians' have family and heritage in south. You're not that special, nor do you deserve any preferential treatment. "host culture"? LOL, it's the same country. India is a nation, not a union.

 

I know this is hard for you to do, but try living life WITHOUT THINKING THAT EVERYONE IS AGAINST YOU. Its really easy. Once you lose your inferiority complex, your life will improve. Trust me.

[coffee_rules]

For this discussion, keep migrant labor out of it, just discuss what educated ones in private and public sector employees feel about assimilation. Business class is absolved of this charge. In my experience, even TamBrams who migrated to Bengaluru in ITI or BEL a d other PSUs didn’t assimilate into Kannada as much as their kids do. I guess, the koschan is , it is a human trait rather than just NaarthIndians. Some of my relatives cousins who went to Chennai, can’t speak a word of Kannada and have assimilated into Tamil kulcha totally.

Edited June 10, 2020 by coffee_rules

[MechEng]

2 hours ago, Vilander said:

 

 

 

Might be ignorant tripe not worth countering.  But can be noted in way how it displays why some folks from North of country do not assimilate into the south indian host culture or how they convince themselves feel 'superior' to it. One might wonder why and how for quite a laugh though. 

See Kumari Kandam is underwater, so it's actually South Indians trying to assimilate in Aryavarta with Naarth Indianss... But we are thankful to you to give melanin to our pale white skin, white enough for Ku Klux Klan members to get inferiority complex.

[Vilander]

3 hours ago, MechEng said:

See Kumari Kandam is underwater, so it's actually South Indians trying to assimilate in Aryavarta with Naarth Indianss... But we are thankful to you to give melanin to our pale white skin, white enough for Ku Klux Klan members to get inferiority complex.

??

[Vilander]

5 hours ago, Manny_Pacquiao said:

 

Millions of 'north indians' have family and heritage in south. You're not that special, nor do you deserve any preferential treatment. "host culture"? LOL, it's the same country. India is a nation, not a union.

 

I know this is hard for you to do, but try living life WITHOUT THINKING THAT EVERYONE IS AGAINST YOU. Its really easy. Once you lose your inferiority complex, your life will improve. Trust me.

lol 

[Alam_dar]

On 6/8/2020 at 3:29 AM, Trichromatic said:

One can say that when you stay in cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, it's is manageable even after remaining aloof, but recently realized that there is in general lack of intent and interest among north Indians to be familiar with south Indian culture, language, people etc.

 

1. Despite living in cities for almost 10 years, people don't know more than 3-4 words of local language. I have a friend who learnt Telugu in 6 months although she never needed it.

2. Not much familiarity with local customs.

3. Not much familiarity with society, places outside city or tourist locations, demographics or political, anyway these are bit too much to expect.

4. Lack of interest in local cinema.

5. Least expected - Familiarity with history of the region.

 

Most of the history is taught about north India and people know fair bit about it from school days. If anyone from south settles to north, it's unlikely that they will know just 3-4 words of local language.

 

Initially I used to believe that it's just lack of opportunity.

 

Little of background where I am coming from. Now I feel that I am bit settled here in Hyderabad and have more time in hand, I started explore more about the state. Started learning Telugu and wondered why I didn't do it earlier in last 4 years. So I started asking everyone that why didn't they try it. Most of them have expressed general lack of interest rather than lack of opportunity.

 

Or maybe my observations are limited. Ideally I would expect people to know more without actually staying there. By more I mean more about history, literature, geography etc. But I took example of people who are actually staying there.

 

I have more questions on similar lines, but will add it to separate thread as those are not related to general public.

First of all I would thank you for starting a very good topic. 

 

Human Nature:

(1) Humans don't like to come out of their comfort zones, till they are compelled for it. There is very tiny number of people who are interested in other languages/cultures as hobby. 

 

In Karachi, there settled millions of Mahajirs (Indian Muslims who migrated to Pakistan), but none of them speak a single word of Sindhi. And there are millions of Pathans and Punjabis too who settled in Karachi,  but none of them speak Sindhi. But all Sindhis who settle in Karachi, they speak Urdu perfectly today. 

 

 

(2) Human nature is this that it automatically tends to follow the more developed language and culture. 

All Dramas (or at least all the Best Dramas) are available only in Urdu/Hindi. 

All films (or at least all the best films) are available only in Urdu/Hindi. 

 

Actually, this aspect is so important that we see that even Nepalis today know Hindi. Actually Bangladeshi, Siri Lankans, Afghans and even some Arabs girls know Hindi today as they had to learn it in order to enjoy the Bollywood movies. I have even seen few Iranian women who were able to understand Hindi, only due to Bollywood. 

 

Therefore, followers of other small cultures/languages "automatically" tend to learn Urdu/Hindi, but opposite is not true. 

 

 

(3) You will see the South Indians will easily learn Hindi and assimilate in North Indian culture. 

But if a Malu goes to Tamil area, then he is not going to learn Tamil language and vice versa. 

 

Therefore, it is not fair to say that ONLY North Indians don't learn the South Indian languages, but the truth is that one South Indian will also not learn the other South Indian language. And it has nothing to do with being a North Indian, but it has to do with the Human Nature. 

 

 

Urdu/Hindi is also going to disappear soon:

 

This Human Nature is going to make is sure that Urdu/Hindi is also going to disappear soon, while ENGLISH language is more developed than Urdu/Hindi and entertainment/social media is using mainly English all over the world.

 

In Pakistan, the younger generation may be able to speak Urdu, but they are already very poor in writing it. They are 10 times better in writing things in English than Urdu. 

 

I am sure same would be true in India too and the younger generations may understand Hindi, but they are mainly using English to write things as compared to Hindi. They are automatically moving towards English at rapid pace.

 

Even younger generations of Europeans/Chinese/Japanese are also moving towards English automatically, although they have highly developed local languages. Still they could not stop/change the human nature. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Alam_dar

[Alam_dar]

On 6/8/2020 at 3:47 PM, Gollum said:

Will narrow down to one peculiar community, the majority one in India.

 

Hindus should unite, should take the initiative to learn about cultures/history of other states...for the last two millennia only one thing has been common in what constitutes present day India, and that ain't language or cuisine. Adi Sankara revived our religion from ICU and established 4 maths in 4 corners of India, why? Ramanuja, Chaitanya, Mirabai, Surdas, Tulsidas, Kalidas, Kabir, Basavanna, Ramakrishna Paramhans, Avvaiyar, Andal, Tukaram, Sankardev, Vivekananda, Tyagaraja all hailed from different parts at different times but what united them? Indian Muslims are united despite difference in language, ethnicity, caste etc. Even Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists show more unity than Hindus, big drawback in our religion....fellow dharmics are doing better, what stops us?

 

Forget about trivial stuff like movies, language, food, politics, y'all don't need to know that. But we all share history/culture/customs....there might have been deviations over time but lot more in common. For starters a Northie based in South should aim to visit as many temples, maths, pilgrimage centres as possible, that is one core part of our dharma which still survives in South and not North, obviously because of Islamic invasions. Even oral traditions, scriptures, Hindu architecture in South are still standing, onus to preserve all of that rests on the shoulders of every Hindu in India and not just the local Kannadigas or Tamils. Our idiots go to Europe, USA, Australia and can't stop raving about 50 year old buildings there, but same *ers won't go visit 2000 yo shrines, architectural marvels still preserved in fantastic condition, that too 20 km away from their residence in Hitec city or Whitefield. Aise chewtiyon ko jitna gaali doon, utna kam. Won't spend 20 bucks to preserve our great (ancient) traditions be it a folk dance, puppetry, handicrafts, martial arts or jallikattu, no they are ashamed of all that, sometimes want it banned....similar stuff of more recent vintage in China, Spain or Morocco and they go into collective orgasm.

 

Even kattar Hindus from various parts had a problem with Sabarimala rules, animal sacrifice in NE, Kambala, Jallikattu, no understanding of our region specific traditions and culture integral to religion. Not just limited to Northies, even Bengalis, Southies, Marathis who work in some other corner of the country must go beyond his/her comfort zone, only that way can we ever emerge strong, otherwise with one billion adherents of Hinduism, what is our aukaat before Christians, Muslims, Jews, even Buddhists? But we are ever ready to run each other down, twist the knives in the backs of others because of regionalism, ego, inferiority complex....

 

And FFS people must learn more about history of other regions, not the barbaric Islamic past but the dharmic history. The great Ranas (cavalry, courage) belong as much to a Southie as the mighty Cholas (masters of the sea) to the Rajasthanis, as Lachit Borphukan (saviour of NE from Aurangzeb's Mughals) to a Bihari, as Krishnadevaraya (largest non-Islamic empire in medieval India, presided over our culture's zenith in that otherwise dark era) to a Jammu Dogra, and so on and so forth. They are common heroes, know more about them, visit historical sites associated with them on weekends, talk to locals about them and listen, try catching hold of books about them and visit local museums to build on knowledge, honour their greatness and countless sacrifices to uphold dharma. To those in Bengaluru-Chennai-Hyderabad region, this part of India is a goldmine to explore our dharmic past. Nothing sickens me more than the sight of an average Hindu parroting the entire Mughal lineage but unable to distinguish between Maratha, Chola, Chera, Hoysala, Chalukya, Pandya, Vijayanagara, Gupta etc. How is the largest Hindu temple in Cambodia, why is there such a strong Hindu influence in SE Asia that Indonesia Prez names his grandson Narendra.....who made this possible? There are other ancient epics in India, why do people not know beyond Ramayan/Mahabharat? Never seen a group of people as disconnected from their past as our chewts, and it is apparently cool to wallow in ignorance. 

 

Are Religion and Language the ONLY 2 factors that could bring the Unity?

 

I believe that both of these 2 factors do help in bringing unity, but there are also huge problems associated with them as they also bring much more "Hatred" and other problems with themselves. 

 

In India, it would be very difficult to impose Hindi (or even the calls are for Sanskrit) today. 

 

And also it would be extremely difficult/almost impossible to convert millions of Muslims/Christians or even Sikhs to Hinduism today. 

 

 

"Common System and Common Values" are also the factors which could bring Unity: 

 

For example, EU countries don't share common language. And surely their unity is also not based upon religion. 

 

But their unity is based upon the common system (Democracy) and the common values (i.e. Secularism). 

 

It is easier to have unity on bases upon system and values, as compared to imposing religion and language. 

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Alam_dar

[maniac]

It’s a matter of convenience. I don’t remember ever learning writing numericals in the Hindi script In school but traveling in BEST buses you have to figure out fast as most buses have the numbering that way. Obviously it’s not rocket science and it is way too easy to figure it out but still if It wasn’t required I would probably have never known.

 

I have a problem if you are from the non-south region and  live in Bengaluru or Hyderabad or even in Kerala for decades and still refer to the locals as Madarasi. Trust me those types still exist. However as long as you are respectful of others that is fine even if you don’t learn the language. 
 

Also this is just my theory, most South Indian languages have a very strong presence of Sanskrit and Tamil both Indian languages so it is easy for South Indians to speak fluent Hindi and enunciate it well however Hindi seems to have a lot of Persian and Urdu influence, so the % of native hindi speakers speaking fluent South Indian languages are way less in comparison. It’s like Indians speaking good English with a neutral accent vs Europeans speaking fluent Indian language without the accent.

 

Case in point look at guys like Shankar Mahadevan and Hariharan, you can’t tell they are South Indians singing Hindi songs if you don’t know who they are and on the flip side guys like Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu etc sounds like a parody of themselves singing South Indian songs. Only guy I can think of is SP Balasubramaniam who has a strong accent when he sings Hindi songs. Respect to Shaan though, he apparently works hard to get the diction right, so even though it’s a give away of you observe closely, he does a very good job and obviously the modern beats  and sound covers it up even more.

Edited June 11, 2020 by maniac

[coffee_rules]

That lady speaking in Hindi in a debate about languages in an English channel is the problem discussed in the OP. 

Until we have no means, English is the link language, we can't live without dialogue. I agree Tamil 1 Hindi 0

 

 

 

[Gollum]

4 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

That lady speaking in Hindi in a debate about languages in an English channel is the problem discussed in the OP. 

Until we have no means, English is the link language, we can't live without dialogue. I agree Tamil 1 Hindi 0

 

 

 

Epic ownage, what an arrogant lady. Speaking Hindi in an English show 

Garga did the same many times...he often goes overboard but has a point. 

 

[randomGuy]

On 6/10/2020 at 9:40 PM, Manny_Pacquiao said:

 

Millions of 'north indians' have family and heritage in south. You're not that special, nor do you deserve any preferential treatment. "host culture"? LOL, it's the same country. India is a nation, not a union.

 

I know this is hard for you to do, but try living life WITHOUT THINKING THAT EVERYONE IS AGAINST YOU. Its really easy. Once you lose your inferiority complex, your life will improve. Trust me.

@Stan AF  <=same goes for this guy.

[Nikhil_cric]

A very interesting thread. As a malayali who , as a 6 year old , migrated to Bangalore in '96 and a student of history in general I'd like to add a couple of points.

 

Bangalore was actually 2 different cities. Bangalore Cantonment was developed and administered by the British and the "city" area by the Mysore state. First era of migrants to Bangalore were brought by the British and were labouring class from the Madras presidency and dakhni speaking Muslims as well. Apart from the British residents, there was also a strong Anglo-Indian population as well. Kannada has no history in the Cantonment much to the chagrin of kannada speakers from south Bangalore.

 

Post independence , the 2 cities were merged as one despite protests against the decision by Cantonment dwellers. English became the most important language as it connected all these populations and the 2 parts of the city and to this day, it's the reason why it's so widely spoken here. 

 

The next wave of migrants were those who were looking for public sector employment and these were from the other south Indian states and probably a few from maharashtra, bengal etc. @coffee_rules is wrong about migrants not learning kannada at all. South indians who were lucky enough to get property in south bangalore assimilated into kannada culture very rapidly. The others settled in what were traditionally migrant areas with little kannada spoken so they survived on English alone with a very basic understanding of kannada. 

There were north Indian trading communities too but these were primarily 

 

 

1. Marwari Jains & Hindus

2. Sindhis

3 Punjabi Hindu khatris and sikhs

4. Gujarati bohra muslims 

 

I grew up in an area which was dominated by these 4 north Indian groups and all of them were business people who spoke better kannada than I did and all their kids communicated solely in English with me. Hindi was an afterthought!

 

Even during the 3rd wave of migrants, primarily IT, it was mostly south Indians in the beginning. Only around 2005-ish did large numbers of Bihar/UP folk arrive and only then did you start hearing a lot of Hindi being spoken. 

 

If you look at it, the strongest proponents of the Hindi language, to the exclusion of other languages, have all come from UP. 

 

We have to remember that UP is the place that produced the likes of RV Dhulekar who thought it appropriate to throw out members from the Constituent Assembly if they did not speak the language . Worth noting that the worst forms of Urdu nationalism,  of Hindu nationalism and highly conservative  Islamic schools of thought in South Asia like the Deoband have their roots in UP.  So it was always going to be a challenge to assimilate migrants from those parts considering they spent all their formative years there and turned up to work in IT. 

 

But, for what its worth my current neighbours are all from UP and their kids speak and act like a typical Bangalore kid from this side of town like I used to so its not all bad:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Khota]

OP is generalizng a lot. I ran into a sikh from TN in Delhi and he was comfortably conversing in Tamil with his friends from college.

I have not been to TN but used to go to Kolkata for summer and picked up Bengali a little bit though. I was able to understand it too. What I really enjoyed about Kolkata was it was a fun city to me and Durga Pooja was fun time. On night I would just roam the city listening to Bengali music and enjoying.

 

To the OP you may be right about first generation but cannot say that for the next one.

 

You go to college in Delhi and you make friends from all over India. Delhi is a true metropoloitan city and you grow up with a very open mind and embrace all cultures.

 

How could anyone not like south I used to eat idli for breakfast for months.