New Delhi, April 8 (MExN): The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah has said that all the eight states of the North East, including Nagaland, have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X.
Presently, Hindi is offered as a ‘Second Language’ subject in Nagaland along with others such as Alternative English, Sumi, Lotha, Tenyidie, Ao and Bengali.
Shah was quoted making the statement in a PIB release, reporting on the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, in New Delhi on April 7, which was chaired by the HM.
He further informed that 22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight states of the North East and nine tribal communities in the region have converted their dialects’ scripts to Devanagari.
The statement further informed that the Home Minister, during the meeting, also unanimously approved the sending of the 11th Volume of the Committee’s report to the President of India.
The pace at which the current Official Language Committee is working has rarely been seen before and sending of three Reports to the President in the same tenure of the committee is a joint achievement of all, he said.
Shah also emphasised on three main points at the meeting, including a request to the Committee to hold a meeting in July for implementation of the recommendations made from 1st to 11th Volume of the Report.
The Committee’ Secretary should inform the members about the implementation of the volume wise report in that meeting, he said.
He also stressed the need to give elementary knowledge of Hindi to students up to Class 9 and pay more attention to Hindi teaching examinations.
Shah further suggested republishing of the Hindi dictionary by revising it.
Shah, who is Chairperson of the Committee, said that the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official Language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.
Now the time has come to make the official language an important part of the unity of the country, he said.
Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages, he noted, further adding that unless Hindi is made flexible by accepting words from other local languages, it would not be propagated.
The Union Home Minister also informed members that now 70 percent of the agenda of the Cabinet is prepared in Hindi.
No such directive from Centre: State School Edn
Shah’s statement reportedly got the Nagaland state government by surprise, the latter maintaining there was no such directive from the Centre. Shanavas C, Principal Director, School Education, Nagaland clarified late on April 8 that the School Education department or the state government “has not received any direction or communication from the Government of India as yet” with regard to the comment. On the odds of the Centre making such a move without consultation, he said, “We hope they won’t impose it without consulting the state governments.”
