No language should be imposed or opposed: VP

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, on Saturday, said there should be neither imposition nor opposition to any language. He advocated primary education in mother tongue throughout the country.

Naidu was addressing a gathering after inaugurating the golden jubilee celebrations of the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) here.

“The medium of instruction in schools, at least in the primary level or up to grade 8, should be in the mother tongue. Education in the mother tongue in the initial stages of education gives impetus to the growth of mind and thought and makes the children creative and logical,” he said.

Naidu advised the state governments to introduce mother tongue as the medium of instruction and suggested linking of employment with the native language up to a certain level.

He said every officer must be familiar with the regional language as the people are comfortable to communicate in it.

‘Real patriotism’

“The signboards at shops, commercial establishments and other institutions must give priority to local language. Protecting and preserving Indian languages is true nationalism and patriotism. The languages are interlinked with land and culture. They are one’s identity and play a significant role in strengthening bonds among people,” Naidu said.

Claiming that he was not opposing other languages, Naidu said he was not against any language.

“One should learn as many as languages as possible. But one should not neglect one’s mother tongue. One can articulate better in his or her mother tongue. The new draft of the National Education Policy puts forth a number of suggestions for supporting education in regional languages and mother tongue, tribal as well as sign languages. The policy rightly states that children have the potential to acquire multilingual skills and they should be encouraged at the earliest,” he said.

The VP said, “More than 19,500 languages or dialects are spoken in India as mother tongue, according to the language census. There are 121 languages, which are spoken by 10,000 or more people in India. Languages are never static, but dynamic living social phenomena. They grow, shrink, transform, merge and die”.

“It is disheartening to learn that 196 languages of India are classified as endangered. We have to ensure that this
number doesn’t increase. We have to protect and preserve the languages and the best
way is to constantly use them,” he said.

The VP lauded the CIIL for its efforts in protecting the languages. Naidu laid the foundation stones for three regional language centres planned to be set up in Bhubaneswar, Patiala and Solan.

He launched a journal of Classical Telugu and released the book - Telugu Siri.

The founder director of CIIL D P Pattanayak was honoured on the occasion. MP Pratap Simha, Mayor Pushpalatha Jagannath, joint secretary to the human resources development department Sanjay Kumar Sinha and CIIL director D G Rao were present.

Naidu called upon the teaching fraternity to adopt Gurukula education system, as a model.

Addressing the gathering after laying the foundation stone for the Dr S Radhakrishnan auditorium at the Regional Institute of Education (RIE) here, Naidu said the role of teachers was crucial in building a literate, enlightened and humane society.