The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has written to the External Affairs Ministry to promote the use of Hindi for official work in banks, public sector undertakings, embassies and other government offices located in foreign countries.
On August 30, the MHA asked the MEA to provide a list of all the government institutions in foreign countries and constitute an Official Language Implementation Committee that would oversee the progress of Hindi in official work.
This was one of the several steps taken by the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) Government since 2014 to promote Hindi in government business.
Also Read | Hindi not competitor but friend of all regional languages: Amit Shah
The National Education Policy 2020 also emphasises multilingualism and proposes a three-language formula in schools, where at least two of the languages are native to India. It says that the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8 and beyond, should be the mother tongue or the regional language. In line with this State Government are publishing bilingual and trilingual textbooks at foundational level and the learning material on Diksha platform relevant to the school curriculum has been made available in 33 Indian languages.
In 2017, MHA accepted most of the recommendations contained in the 2011 report of a parliamentary standing committee on Hindi. Some of the recommendations were -option to write exams in Hindi, minimum knowledge of Hindi must for government jobs, 50% government advertisements in Hindi, railway tickets should be bilingual- Hindi being one of the languages and announcement at railway stations in “C” category (non-Hindi speaking) such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Kerala should be in Hindi.
In 2017, the Ministry said that the websites of all the Union Ministries and the offices under their control should be bilingual and the Hindi pages should also be compulsorily uploaded while updating the website.
Websites open by default in Hindi
Most government websites are bilingual now — Hindi and English. However, the websites of organisations such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) and even the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) open in Hindi by default.
Also Read | Hindi’s simplicity, sensitivity always attract people: PM Modi
After the Union Home Minister joined office in July 2019, additional staff was engaged to translate the files into Hindi.
In the past two years, most press releases by the Union Ministries were released first in Hindi.
As per the MHA’s April 26 notification, more than 80% staff in at least seven offices under the Ministry including the Directorate of Census Operations in West Bengal and the Delhi Police’s Commissioner office had attained the working knowledge of Hindi.
Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan, also said that his Ministry in collaboration with the MHA had developed a digital dictionary which included commonly used words in various regional languages. This included words from technology and banking to ensure that people from various fields could work in Hindi with ease.
As far as higher education is concerned, engineering courses are being offered in six Indian languages in 19 engineering colleges across 10 States from 2021-2022. The provision for the additional supernumerary seats in regional languages and up to 50% of the sanctioned intake in the regional languages have also been made by the AICTE.
The Chairman of the University Grants Commission M. Jagadesh Kumar and the All India Council for Technical Education told The Hindu, “The AICTE is working on translating technical books in various Indian languages and the work on this has started for 1st year courses and will start for 2nd year courses as we are identifying experts. At the UGC we have formed a committee for translating books in subjects such as commerce and humanities. But we have to prioritise all the Indian languages and one is to promote them in colleges and universities.”
The UGC has also offered 29 massive open online courses in eight languages, which include “Access to Justice” and “Environmental Law”.
