Congress pans Home Minister Amit Shah over his comments on Hindi

The Congress on Friday accused Home Minister Amit Shah of trying to impose Hindi, and said in doing so he is doing a disservice to the language.

The opposition party also said Shah was trying to divert public attention from the issues of inflation and price rise.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Hindi is 'Raj Bhasha' (official language) and not 'Rashtra Bhasha' (national language), as Rajnath Singh had noted in Parliament when he was the home minister.

"Hindi imperialism will be the death knell for India. I'm very comfortable with Hindi, but I don't want it rammed down anybody's throat. Amit Shah is doing a disservice to Hindi by imposing it," Ramesh said on Twitter.

 

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the home minister has tried to sermonise about Hindi which he should not.

"The home minister has tried to sermonise us about Hindi. I have already answered in Hindi. I am a great supporter of Hindi, but not of imposition, not of provocative politics, not of divisive politics," he told reporters at a press conference.

He also alleged that by raking up the issue of Hindi, the home minister is also trying to divert people's attention from inflation and price rise.

"Will your Hindi sermonising solve either inflation or unemployment- no. Your object is digression, diversion, derailing. Secondly, your objective is to create mutual distrust by imposition, by coercion," he said.

Singhvi said with his personal experience and historical experience, the three language formula of the 1960s has stood the test of time, and language riots of the 1960s have fortunately become a dim memory of the past.

"Don't conflagrate...don't give us sermons," he said.

The Congress leader said he has spoken at the press conference in Hindi, but people are more scared about price rise and inflation than Covid. He claimed that people have lost Rs 26 lakh crore in the last eight years by way of taxes on fuel, but nothing has come back to them even during Covid times.

In a left-handed compliment, Singhvi said India has achieved the "great number one status" under Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the price of LPG, third position in petrol and stands in eighth place in diesel in the world.

Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.

Presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee here, Shah had said 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, according to a statement issued by the Union Home Ministry.

He informed the members that now 70 per cent of the agenda of the Cabinet is prepared in Hindi.

Shah said now the time has come to make the official language Hindi an important part of the unity of the country.

He said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages, according to the statement.