Hindi should be alternative language to English, says Amit Shah; Siddaramaiah slams 'cultural terrorism'

Shah also said there is a need to give elementary knowledge of Hindi to students up to Class 9

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that Hindi should be "accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages" and when citizens of states who speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the "language of India".

Shah made the comments while presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee on Thursday.

His comments have invited criticism with former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah tweeting, "As a Kannadiga, I take strong offence to Home Minister Amit Shah's comment on Official language and medium of communication. Hindi is not our National Language and we will never let it be."

Using hashtag #IndiaAgainstHindiImposition, he also said, "Most of the country's states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and northeastern states do not use Hindi as the official language. To deal with them in Hindi is cultural terrorism."

Also read: Will never let Hindi become national language, says Siddaramaiah

In the meeting, Shah said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided on the medium of running the government in the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi. Now 70 per cent of the Cabinet agenda is prepared in Hindi, he was quoted as saying in an official statement.

"Now the time has come to make the official language an important part of the unity of the country. When citizens of states who speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India. Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages. Unless we make Hindi flexible by accepting words from other local languages, it will not be propagated," the Minister said.

He said the committee is requested to hold a meeting in July to implement the recommendations made from 1st to 11th volumes of its report. The Secretary of the Official Language Committee should inform the members about the implementation of the volume-wise report in that meeting.

He also said that there is a need to give elementary knowledge of Hindi to students up to Class 9 and pay more attention to Hindi teaching examinations. He also suggested the republishing of the Hindi dictionary by revising it.

Shah said 22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight north-eastern states. Nine tribal communities of the north-east have converted their dialects' scripts to Devanagari.

Apart from this, Shah said, all the eight states of the North East have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X.

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