In a statement, the student organisations— AIMS, AMSU, DESAM, KSA, MSF and SUK—made it clear that they will not accept Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s announcement to make Hindi compulsory up to Class X in Northeast states, including Manipur
TFM Desk
Taking strong exception to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s announcement to make Hindi compulsory up to Class X in North East states including Manipur, six major students’ organisations in Manipur on Sunday said the move is totally in contradiction to India’s ‘unity in diversity’ claim.
In a statement, the student organisations— AIMS, AMSU, DESAM, KSA, MSF and SUK—made it clear that they will not accept the imposition of Hindi. India is the world’s largest democratic country. It is one of the most diverse nations in the world, with different communities having their own languages and scripts. Manipur, which was an independent nation in south east Asia for more than 3000 years, has its own language. Different ethnic communities living in the state also have their own mother tongue and the state vouches for education in their dialects, it said.
The students’ bodies said as though Hindi is unfamiliar in Manipur, there is no restriction on learning Hindi and no one has authority to do so. However, imposition of Hindi to annihilate other languages will not be accepted, they said.
Saying that speaking or not speaking English is their choice, the students’ bodies said making Hindi compulsory till Class X will be treated as colonial domination policy.
They also said that Hindi is one of 22 languages of India in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, so is the Manipuri. As per the Constitution, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Tamil etc have the same status as Hindi. So, imposition of Hindi spoken in some regions and decision to make it compulsory to Northeast students is deplorable, they said.