The Home Minister Amit Shah has declared today, on Hindi Day, that only Hindi can unite the country and has openly pushed for the ‘One Nation, One Language’ agenda.
Shah in a tweet stated that, “There are several languages in India and they have their own value, but it is important for the nation to have one language that it is identified by in the world. If there is one language that can unite the country, it’s Hindi.”
He then went on to urge citizens on the occasion of Hindi Diwas to increasingly use their mother tongues, and also the Hindi language more often, and in doing so, contribute to realising the dream of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel of ‘one nation, one language’.
Over the past few years the Modi government has repeatedly tried to impose Hindi. Recently, the government proposed to formulate the three language formula in schools and recommended the inclusion of English and Hindi besides the mother tongue in non-Hindi speaking states. This draft policy makes learning Hindi mandatory.
The draft policy was received with protests from several states, especially Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
There have been many instances where government recruitment exams in the railways and banking sectors were forced to cancel and reschedule in regional languages after the Modi government restricted the exams only to Hindi and English.
Amit Shah’s tweets have already garnered in sharp reactions and also triggered protests in several states.
Source : Various