Tamil Nadu Finance Minister slams Amit Shah for advocating 'three-language formula', says it is completely 'off logic'

A day after Union Minister Amit Shah emphasized the need to accept Hindi as an alternative to English and not to local languages, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan slammed Shah saying that the "three-language formula" does not make sense and it is completely "off logic".

"Why should I have a three-language formula?...It makes no sense...Union Home Minister Amit Shah's comment is completely off logic. Hindi is not intrinsic to at least 60 per cent-70 per cent of country...Not only it is chauvinism but it is economically inverse logic," said Tamil Nadu Finance Minister today.

Notably, the three languages referred to are Hindi, English and the regional language of the respective states.

In August 2020, then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami rejected the three-language formula advocated in the National Education Policy (NEP 2020). Several political leaders in the state had forced the Centre to amend the draft NEP in 2019 and withdraw a proposal to teach Hindi as a third language in schools in non-Hindi speaking States.

However, in the NEP 2020, it was decided to push for the three-language formula, to promote multilingualism and national unity.

Amit Shah on Thursday emphasized on the need to accept Hindi as an alternative to English and not to local languages. The Home Minister's remarks came when he was presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee here on the Parliament premises.

"Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages," Shah said, adding, "unless we make Hindi flexible by accepting words from other local languages, it will not be propagated".

He said that now the time has come to make the official language an important part of the unity of the country. Meanwhile, Shah said when citizens of states communicate with each other, it should be an Indian language whether it is regional or state-specific.

During the meeting, the Home Minister unanimously approved sending of the 11th Volume of the Committee's report to the President of India. Noting that the pace at which the current Official Language Committee is working has rarely been seen before, the Minister said, adding that sending of three Reports to the President of India in the same tenure of the committee is a joint achievement of all.

The Union Home Minister informed the members of the committee that now 70 per cent of the agenda of the Cabinet is prepared in Hindi.

Shah said, "22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight states of the North East. Also, nine tribal communities of the North East have converted their dialects' scripts to Devanagari. Apart from this, all the eight states of the North East have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X."

The Union Home Minister emphasized three main points. One is that the Committee is requested to hold a meeting in July for implementation of the recommendations made from the 1st to 11th Volume of the Report. Shah said that the Secretary of the Official Language Committee should inform the members about the implementation of the volume-wise report in that meeting.

Under the second point, he stressed the need to give elementary knowledge of Hindi to students up to Class 9 and pay more attention to Hindi teaching examinations.Under the third point, the Union Home Minister suggested republishing the Hindi dictionary by revising it.

Shah also said that after meeting with all concerned Secretaries, an Implementation Committee should be constituted to review the progress of implementing recommendations of the 1st to 11th volume of the Official Language Committee report.

The Chairperson of the Official Language Committee, Amit Shah said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.

( With inputs from ANI )

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