Home Minister Wants Hindi As ‘Language For The Country'

The Narendra Modi-led government has continued to push Hindi as the ‘one’ language of India since it came to power in 2014. In its previous stint, the BJP had tried to change the language of official correspondence to Hindi. It had also tried to make Hindi compulsory in schools across India. Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent comment that ‘only Hindi could unite the nation’ as the language reflect the country’s identity is what BJP always wanted to implement. Kingson Chingakham narrates.

- Kingson Chingakham

Speaking on the occasion of Hindi Diwas, Union Home Minister Amit Shah triggered a political controversy when he said that ‘only Hindi could unite the nation’ as the language reflect the country’s identity. He also expressed that it was a national responsibility to expand and prosper Hindi.

Although the Home Minister also warned that that the promotion of Hindi should not be done at the cost of local languages, regional political parties saw such statement as a threat to ‘Indian integrity and diversity’. With a massive victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent general elections, the country has moved towards the majoritarian state. The opposition fears that this kind of majoritarian government can do anything unilaterally without consulting the various stakeholders. Many also gave an example of how the BJP led NDA government unilaterally bifurcated the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories without the proper channel of debate and discussion in the Parliament.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had always urged for three-language formula for India, which is, English, Hindi and the mother tongue (or the Native language). Any attempt to tamper this three-language formula will destroy the integrity of the country. This is in contrast to what Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhai Patel had appealed to the public. Both these tall leaders believed ‘Hindi as the official language’. This is where Amit Shah got the inspiration.

Facts from Census 2011

According to the Census Report 2011, out of the 22 Scheduled languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, Hindi had the highest number of speakers in the country. Although Hindi has many dialects, 43.63 per cent of the population spoke Hindi. Bengalee possessed the second-highest speakers in the country, followed by western and south Indian languages in descending order- Marathi, Telegu and Tamil.