In an "appeal" to all teachers, officers and employees of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Vice-Chancellor Prof D Santishree Pandit has asked for the use of "official language" Hindi for all official work and communication for the month of September. The letter mentions that September 14 is celebrated as Hindi Diwas and, in connection with the celebrations, the Indian government conducts most of its official work in Hindi. 

The "appeal" was written in Hindi and shared on the official Twitter handle of JNU with an accompanying tweet, also in Hindi that said that the JNU VC had shown "commitment" to the "official language" Hindi. The letter stated that the purpose of conducting official work in Hindi during the month of September was to "not only respect the official language but also discharge our constitutional and moral objectives". The VC also went on to say in the appeal that though "most of the work" of the university is done in Hindi, the university's "targets set for the official language are yet to be achieved".

In 2017, PTI reported that JNU faced massive backlash from students when they protested against the university's requirement for PhD students to transliterate their name, their centre and the topic of their dissertation or thesis into Hindi. Again, in 2019, JNU was forced to roll back the agenda for a meeting of the Academic Council that reportedly aimed to make Hindi a compulsory subject for BA and BTech courses in the varsity.