New Delhi: The opposition parties and leaders today used Hindi Divas to create divisions among the people by twisting the speech and tweets of Home Minister, Amit Shah, who praised the language and pointed out that Hindi could unite all the country. He also reminded the people to always give importance to their local mother language and not to let a foreign language overtake a native language.
Amit Shah said, “It is our strength that we have many languages and dialects. We have to see that a foreign language does not overtake a native language.”
He also brought out the importance of Hindi in a country with different languages. In a series of tweets he said, “India has many languages and every language has its importance. But it is absolutely necessary that the entire country should have one language that becomes India’s identity globally.”
He said that Hindi can unite the country because it is spoken by most of the people in India. He also appealed to the people to also use Hindi because it was the dream of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhai Patel for one language in the country.
He also outlined the different steps for promoting Hindi and said that by 2024 Hindi will have a monumental status.
However, the opposition today used this pretext to divide the country on the basis of language by criticizing the Home Minister’s support for Hindi. Even though the minister had spoke about the importance of native languages, the opposition was up in arms and accused Amit Shah of trying to infringe on federalism.
The communist party CPI said that the government’s plan to propagate Hindi is an attack on India’s federal structure and diversity. They even went to the extent of demanding that Amit Shah withdraw his statement.
DMK chief M. K. Stalin also jumped into the fray and said that Amit Shah’s statement infringed on national integrity and asked him to withdraw the statement. Other regional parties of Tamil Nadu also took offence to the Home Minister’s statement.
Interestingly, English, which is used as a link language in India is foreign, do not attract such a widespread criticism like the use of the Indian language Hindi. Most of the attack comes from forces inimical to the integration of the country.
Meanwhile, most of the political leaders, including BJP, Congress, etc. wished the people on Hindi Divas.