SHILLONG: The 1st Sub Committee of Parliamentary Rajbhasa Committee set up by Union Government has made it clear that there is no question of imposing Hindi language on the people of the country.
The High Level Committee headed by Rajya Sabha MP Satyabrata Chaturvedi, was on a two-day visit to Shillong in connection with inspection of four Central Government organizations- Border Security Force Meghalaya, North East Police Academy (NEPA), Military Engineering Services (MES) and North East Regional Institute of Education (NERIE).
Talking to media persons during the Committee’s visit to Shillong, Satyabrata Chaturvedi while denying the speculations that the Central Government wants to impose Hindi language on people said that the Government since last 60-70 years is trying to encourage people slowly to learn the language but it is nor forcing on the people to learn the language.
Claiming that that the number of Hindi speaking people has increased in the North East region, he added that situation in the region has changed as more and more students who go outside the region for studies realised that they needed to learn their own language apart from English.
“They get more opportunities and jobs and when they come here they also try to speak in Hindi language,” he said.
Maintaining that there was resistance to learn Hindi language earlier, he added now people are keen to learn the language.
According to Chaturvedi, different State Government’s in the country use their own language including English for their own work and it is their right.
“English is not our mother tongue and we don’t learn it from the womb but go to school for 10-12 years and if we can learn English which is a foreign language, why can’t we learn Hindi which is our own language,” he told reporters.
He also said that the target is to see cent percent people learning Hindi language in regions which are familiar with Hindi and the target in North East and other regions like Southern India is 55 percent.