Use Hindi, local languages as much as possible: Amit Shah to govt offices

NEW DELHI: Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday urged Central government offices to use Hindi as the basic medium for doing official work while also translating the same into other regional languages. In a recorded audio-visual message issued on the occasion of ‘Hindi Diwas’, Shah called upon young citizens to hold conversations in local Indian languages with friends who are versed in these languages, and also requested parents to teach their children to talk in these languages.
Citing Article 343 of the Constitution of India that outlines Hindi as ‘rajbhasha’ (official language) of the Union of India and ‘Devanagari’ as a script, the home minister — who himself conducts most of his official work in Hindi — said Hindi has played a primary role in preserving Indian culture, traditions and values. Stressing that Hindi has never been in competition with other regional languages, Shah said that it has, in fact, strived to strengthen the latter. “Hindi has empowered the regional language of every state....as per Article 351 of the Constitution, Hindi is to be enriched by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in other (Indian) languages and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages”.
Shah’s message on Hindi Diwas this year sought to repeatedly stress on parallel promotion of Hindi and all other regional languages. This follows strong reactions to his tweet on Hindi Diwas last year that “if one language can do the work of uniting the country, then it is the most spoken language, Hindi”. Many regional parties, particularly the Dravidian ones, had interpreted this as an attempt to undermine regional languages. This, despite Shah having clearly stated in his speech at a Hindi Diwas function the same day that the growth of Hindi could never be at the cost of any other language.
Shah on Monday reiterated that the new education policy of the Modi government sought to promote Hindi and other local languages on an equal footing.
He added that the department of official language would also use e-tools such as applications and artificial intelligence-based aids to promote the use of Hindi in official work.