The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has accused the central government of imposing Hindi as the official language of the country. In the latest editorial of its party mouthpiece, People's Democracy, CPI(M), on Thursday, October 13, alluded to the recent report of a parliamentary committee headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the article. As per a report by PTI, the party claimed that if the recommendations of the committee are implemented, it would mean that students of non-Hindi background would have to qualify for the entrance examinations for these institutions in Hindi and also adopt the Hindi medium of instruction.
"This would be patently discriminatory against those whose mother tongue is not Hindi. When this proposal met with strong opposition from some of the non-Hindi state governments, it was clarified that Hindi would be the compulsory medium of instruction in central educational institutions situated in the Hindi states while in the other non-Hindi states, the respective regional languages would be the medium of instruction," the editorial stated.
The party also claimed that central universities or eminent institutes like Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Hindi-speaking states would only admit students who are equipped for the Hindi medium of instruction. This, the party said, will impact the pan-India character of these institutes, making them open only for those students well-versed in Hindi. "Thus, the Delhi IIT or a central government university like Banaras Hindu University, would become out of bounds for non-Hindi students. The same would apply to the faculty. If central educational institutions situated in non-Hindi states adopt the state/regional language as the medium of instruction, then it would serve only students of that state or region. This would mean that the all-India character of these institutions would be nullified," read the editorial.
CPI(M) countered that a democratic language policy would require that all the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule as national languages are treated equally. "The recommendations of the official language committee in other matters too militate against this equality. For instance, the committee has recommended that more than 50% of the budget of government advertisements should continue to be allocated to Hindi language ads," it said.
The correct step, according to CPI(M), would be to demand that the main language of a state should become the medium of higher education and administration in that state and should be applicable to state-level institutions, reported PTI. It added that giving prime importance to Hindi in central educational institutions would be to "discriminate" against other national langauges.
The editorial also accused Amit Shah of "consistently pushing the idea of One Nation, One Language". "This is in line with the RSS slogan of One Nation, One Language, One Culture. In a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, diverse country like India, the efforts to impose Hindi will only lead to discord and disunity," said the CPI(M) in the editorial.
