Amit Shah once again echoed the voice of the founding fathers to promote Hindi as a medium of exchange between people of different states vis-a-vis English. Article 351 of our constitution also directs Union to promote Hindi.
Amit Shah’s latest Statement
Union Home Minister Amit Shah while chairing the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee spoke at length to promote Hindi. He gave the green signal for sending the 11th Volume of the Committee Report to the Honorable President, the committee had unanimously accepted the report. He emphasized three key points.
- A meeting in July for the implementation of recommendations of all the eleven Volumes. In the meeting, the Secretary of the language committee should inform members about the implementation of a volume-wise report.
- Emphasis should be given to imparting elementary knowledge of Hindi till the 9th standard and focusing on Hindi teaching exams.
- Hindi dictionary should be made flexible by adding words from other local languages and it should be republished.
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As per the official press release of MHA, Amit Shah said, “PM Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the Official Language, due to which the importance of Hindi will definitely grow”. He suggested that Hindi should be used as a medium of communication instead of English by people of different language-speaking states. He was very clear that Hindi should be an alternative to English, not our local language. He also highlighted how the government has promoted Hindi and after consultations made Hindi compulsory up to Class 10th in all eight states of the North-East.
Earlier Efforts/Push
In 2019, Amit Shah addressed the Hindi Diwas and spoke about one Indian language i.e Hindi that can work as a connecting thread for uniting India and can become a mark of India globally. He suggested the Formula of “One Nation, One Language”. The opposition created a hue and cry and branded it as ‘Hindi Imposition’, as always had been the case. Amit Shah clarified that Hindi is not competing with other local languages but compliments other Indian Languages.
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The National Educational Policy also emphasises learning Three languages, Mother-tongue, One Indian Language, and one foreign language. The focus of the government is to promote Indian languages vis-a-vis English, which was imposed on us during the British Colonial era and had slowly become more than a medium of communication.
Constitutional Stand
Part XVII of the Constitution of India comprises Article 343 to Article 351 which deals with the Official Languages of the Union of India and steps/majors the government should take to promote them. Article 343 specifies that Hindi is the official language of the Union and Article 351 imposes a duty on the Union to promote Hindi.
The founding fathers wanted to promote Hindi but due to the paucity of time, and resources and to stop political outrage, they could not achieve it but dedicated a whole part of the constitution to it and specified that Union should promote Indian Languages including Hindi.
The only hindrance and opposition to the promotion of Hindi are Political, especially the Southern states’ politicians that have high-jacked it as a political divisive tool and don’t want constructive steps to promote Indian languages including theirs’ vis-a-vis English. These Periyarites Politicians use this as a rallying point for a divisive campaign and divert all-important issues of that contemporary times in the election. The opposition is of civilizational language instead of the colonial one that had been imposed forcefully by brainwashing through the Macaulian institutions.
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All the languages of India have their unique identity that needs to be preserved and promoted, but at the same time steps have to be taken, keeping politics aside, to find an Indian language as an alternative to the Colonial language, English.
This can very well unite and strengthen the brotherhood among Indians and will also give more opportunities for the people to move anywhere in India and the exchange of views and ideas will take place seamlessly without hindrance or loss of the essence of communication in translation. The aforementioned steps of the government for the promotion of Hindi and other official languages are praiseworthy, constructive, and futuristic.