Rising People’s Party (RPP) has now sought a clarification from Nagaland chief minister and others on making Hindi compulsory in the state.
By Imna Longchar, TFM Nagaland Correspondent
The Rising People’s Party (RPP) is literally irked by recent statement of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on making Hindi a compulsory subject till Class X in all the eight northeastern states of India. The party has termed Amit Shah’s action or making Hindi compulsory all over the country as “crass chauvinism”.
Not taking the issue lightly, RPP on Saturday sought a clarification from Nagaland chief minister, deputy chief minister, the state BJP president, and the advisor for school education. Stating that the UDA coalition has to clarify on the issue, the RPP said that the party stood for “unity in diversity” and any attempt to “impose” Hindi in the state/country is “crass chauvinism” and smacks of “majoritarianism” at play.
RPP asserted that it would oppose such policies tooth. The state educational policy falls under the prerogative of the state governments and any “diktats” by the central government on the issue is “violative” of the federal structure of the country and thus unacceptable, said RPP.
RPP said “there’s a lingering suspicion that the state politicians may have given their personal assurance(s) to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in order to make Hindi compulsory up to class X following which he must have made the statement. “The personal nod given by our state politicians cannot be ruled out because two years back the state government banned sale of dog meat on the ‘advisory note’ of a central leader seated in Delhi having no respect for our Naga sentiments or our culture. The proverbial sell-your-mother attitude of the state politicians eager to please Delhi is not only utterly disgusting but shameless too,” said RPP.
It also stated that unlike the south of India where politicians fiercely guard their regional and linguistic identity, Nagaland being “helmed by spineless leaders, and of late rank sycophants”, it was absolutely possible that Shah indeed “extracted” the nod from our politicians to go ahead with his controversial statement.
The RPP further demanded that Nagaland chief minister, deputy chief minister, the state BJP president, and the advisor for school education give a clarification immediately on the issue.
It may be mentioned that the union home minister Amit Shah while presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee (POLC) on April 7 had said that Hindi should be accepted as an “alternative to English” and no to “local languages”.
In the meet, he also informed that about 20,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight northeast states while adding that nine tribal communities of the region have converted their dialects (scripts) to “Devanagari”.