"It's Kerala CM's political motive...": Parliamentary panel member on language

After Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP and Member of Committee of Parliament on Official Language Harnath Singh Yadav on Wednesday criticized Vijayan saying those who are opposing Hindi have political motives behind it.

Speaking to ANI, Yadav said, "Chief Minister of Kerala and other people who are opposing Hindi have political motives behind it. As far as the languages are concerned, I am a member of the Official Language Committee. Whatever report we have submitted to the President of India, under the leadership of Home Minister Amit Shah, it has been urged to make a provision that Hindi should be developed as a communication language."

"The second thing is that Prime Minister and Home Minister have always said on many occasions that we want to enrich Hindi and all the regional mother tongues of the country equally. All the regional languages should progress equally," he said.

Yadav further said that in the country, more than 70 per cent of the people know, understand, read, write and speak the Hindi language. He said there is only less than 2 per cent of the people know the English language, as per the census of 2011.

He said Kerala CM opposed Hindi but wants to maintain English, which is the language of the British.

"Kerala CM is misleading the country by making such rhetoric. He wants that the English language should be known, it is the language of slavery. Whether it is Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam whatever regional languages are there if all those languages are prosperous, then the unity of the country will remain and we are taking that forward," added the BJP MP.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to PM Modi informing the state's stand of not accepting the parliamentary panel recommendation to make the Hindi language the medium of exams for central services and make it a compulsory study language in educational institutions incl IITs and IIMs.

"The essence of India is defined by the concept of 'unity in diversity' which acknowledges cultural and linguistic diversity. Promoting any one language above others would destroy integrity, said Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan in a letter to PM Modi, demanding the withdrawal of such efforts," said Kerala CM.

( With inputs from ANI )

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