Three-language policy is not applicable to offices of Central Government

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In response to a question filed under RTI, Ministry of Home Affairs has said that the policy of three languages is not applicable to the offices of the central government.

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On 14th September, 2021 Amit Shah, Minister Home Affairs raised the controversy by reigniting the issue that Hindi could be the language of India that can unite the country in one thread.

The issue at Shimoga district at Karnataka came up when the foundation stone was laid for the 97th battalion of the Rapid Action Force in Bhadravati on January 16. The content on the plaques were only in Hindi and English. Kannada was completely ignored as the banner for the occasion was also printed in Hindi. RTI was filed by questioning the reason for this to which ministry replied stating that, ‘as per the provision of the Official Language Act, 1963, and the Official Language Rules, 1976, the provision of bilingual policy is applicable in the offices of the Central government.’

Seeing this biasness an amendment has been demanded from article 343 to 351 that declare Hindi as an official language.

The enforcement of the Hindi language is a subject matter that has great historical baggage in India. Anti-Hindi agitations had taken over south India from the 1930s to early 1960s. They went on to become one of the most important political tools for Dravidian parties at that time.

The constituent assembly that framed the Indian Constitution to a great extent debated over whether Hindi could become a national language. However, it eventually settled for what is known as the “Munshi-Ayyanagar formula” that included Hindi as one of the many official languages of India.

The two members of the assembly, K.M. Munshi and Gopalaswami Ayyangar,observed that the Hindi language not only has a limited appeal in large parts of India but also is comparatively inefficient to capture the technicalities of law and legislations being framed then for an independent India.

However, the debate that was thought of as an issue that had been resolved came back with the release of the draft NEP with a controversial clause that called for compulsory teaching of Hindi.