Language war goes inter-state as Stalin, Fadnavis lock horns over NEP implementation

Mumbai: Amid the Marathi vs Hindi issue, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his Tamil Nadu counterpart seemed to lock horns over the New Education Policy, which is being rolled out in a phased manner.

The development took place on a day when the Fadnavis-headed MahaYuti-NDA dispensation decided not to make Hindi mandatory as a third language for Class 1-5 of Marathi and English medium but optional.

Amid the Maharashtra issue over New Education Policy 2020, M K Stalin sought response from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

“Facing a massive backlash for imposing Hindi as the third language, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis now claims that only Marathi is compulsory in the state. This is a clear manifestation of his trepidation over the widespread public condemnation against imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking States,” Stalin, the leader of DMK, posted on X.

Stalin wanted to know from Modi and Pradhan whether the Union Government officially endorse his position that no language other than Marathi is compulsory in Maharashtra as the third language under National Education Policy.

“If so, will the Union government issue a clear directive to all states affirming that the NEP does not require the compulsory teaching of a third language? Will the Union Government release the Rs. 2,152 crore it unjustly withheld for Tamil Nadu on the premise that the state must subscribe to the teaching of a mandatory third language?,” he asked.

However, Fadnavis immediately responded to Stalin and asked the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to study the NEP before seeking replies from Modi.

“Before seeking clarifications from Hon PM Narendra Modi ji, you need a deep understanding of National Education Policy. First you need to study what exactly NEP is,” he posted on X and also provided the link to the policy.

“NEP never insisted or made compulsion on language choice but only asked to study any 2 Indian languages other than English, out of 3. As far as Maharashtra is concerned, we are open to Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit or any language of student’s choice which they wish to study as the third language. Main question is why are you not open to multilingualism and have a problem if someone wants to study in Hindi,” said Fadnavis.