Several Northeast-based organisations — including Assam’s apex literary body, the Asom Sahitya Sabha and Manipur’s Meitei Erol Eyek Loinashillon Apunba Lup (MEELAL), a group established to safeguard Manipuri manuscripts and language — have opposed the Centre’s proposal to make Hindi compulsory till Class 10 in the region and urged the government to reconsider its move.
“The Union Home minister should have instead taken steps to develop Assamese and other indigenous languages. Such steps spell a bleak future for Assamese and all indigenous languages in the Northeast. The Sabha demands that the decision to make Hindi mandatory till Class 10 be revoked,” the Asom Sahitya Sabha said in a statement released on Saturday.
Earlier this week, Union home minister Amit Shah, who chairs the Parliamentary Official Language committee, had announced that Hindi would be made compulsory in all eight northeastern states upto Class 10. Shah had said that 2,200 Hindi teachers had been recruited in the Northeast, adding that Hindi was the “language of India”. He had, however, clarified that Hindi should be an alternative to English and not local languages.
As a mandatory subject
In the Northeast region, Hindi is compulsorily taught till Class 8 except in Arunachal Pradesh, where the language is a mandatory subject till Class 10. In Tripura, Hindi is not compulsory at all in school.
In the Northeast region, Hindi is compulsorily taught till Class 8 except in Arunachal Pradesh, where the language is the lingua franca, it is a mandatory subject till Class 10. In Tripura, Hindi is not compulsory till any class.
Shah’s comment invoked sharp reactions from civil society groups as well as political parties in the Northeast. The Northeast Students’ Union, an umbrella group of student bodies in the region, called it an “imposition”. “We have always maintained the three language formula be followed — English, Hindi and the local language,” said chairman Samuel B Jywra. “The mother language should be compulsory and Hindi can be made the alternative.”
The newly-formed regional parties in the state, Raijor Dal and Assam Jatiya Parishad also opposed the move. “The High Level committee of Clause 6 had recommended that Assamese be made mandatory in all state and central schools. Even the chief minister has often spoken of the trouble Assamese language is in and called for its use,” said Lurinjyoti Gogoi, president of the Assam Jatiya Parishad.
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Clause 6 of the Assam Accord — a pact that the Union government signed with Assamese nationalists groups in 1985 to mark the end of a six-year-long anti-‘foreigner’ Assam Agitation (1979-85) —speaks of constitutional safeguards to Assamese language and culture.
On Saturday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had defended Shah’s statement and said that no direction had been received from the Centre with regard to the announcement.
In Manipur, the Meitei Erol Eyek Loinashillon Apunba Lup (MEELAL), a group established to safeguard Manipuri manuscripts and language, has construed the move to make Hindi language compulsory in the region, as aimed at rewriting the history based on the interest and ideology of a larger group.
“The one nation, one language, one religion ideology of the BJP cannot be implemented throughout the country, especially in Kangleipak (Manipur), which has a unique history of over 5,000 years,” said Huirem Loikhomba Meetei, MEELAL general secretary.
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MEELAL cautioned the Centre that Manipur will not tolerate the narrow-minded policy against the Northeastern states. It urged the leaders of the state to make their stand clear on the current development
