As Union Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah pitched for Hindi as a common language for India, Maharashtra seems to be quite okay with it.
Shah's statement coming ahead of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly polls could have a potential of a reaction like that witnessed in southern states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka but politicians in the state seemed to be guarded.
A cross-section of people including politicians to whom DH spoke, said that while Hindi as a language is important, it needs to be seen that Marathi's place needs to be maintained.
Maharashtra's urban areas including the vast Mumbai Metropolitan Region has a vast Hindi-speaking North Indian population.
"Hindi is the mother tongue of 64 crore people and second language for 24 crore people and for 42 crore people it is third, fourth or a foreign language," said Dr Karunashankar Upadhyay, Professor & Head Hindi department, University of Mumbai.
"All the 30 big economies, there is a national language, common language," he said, pointing out that Israel, with 80 lakh people, had 12 Nobel laureates whereas India, with a population of 130 crore, was nowhere close to it.
"It is time, we have to analyse the reasons. If we want to see India as a real 'vishwa guru' we have to promote Hindi," he said.
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