SHILLONG, April 10: Shillong MP, Vincent H Pala will write to Prime Minister, Narendra Modi opposing the Centre’s move to make Hindi compulsory up to Class X in the Northeast.
In the past two days, various organisations and politicians in the region have vented their ire while opposing the Centre’s move.
“I will be writing to the PM on this on Monday. I would impress upon him to withdraw the proposal,” Pala told The Shillong Times.
He said this is not acceptable since education is a concurrent subject and not a central subject. The consent of the states is needed before coming up with such a proposal, he said.
The Congress leader said the attempt to impose Hindi on the states by the BJP-led central government only reflects its agenda of having one country, one religion and one language.
“This is not a healthy trend at all,” he added.
Recently, Union Home Minister, Amit Shah claimed that all the eight states in the Northeast had agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X.
Presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah had said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.
He said 20,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight states, adding nine tribal communities of the Northeast have converted the scripts of their dialects to Devanagari.
Meanwhile, KSU president, Lambokstar Marngar said the union will be ready to discuss the issue with the Centre if Shah is able to speak all the local dialects of the Khasi tribe.
“Let the Union Home Minister learn how to speak our dialects,” Marngar said, adding it appears Shah is not aware of the provisions laid down in the Constitution.
The KSU president said the various tribes and communities have their own dialect and language. He said many of the people in South India and other parts of the country do not understand the Hindi language.
“This attitude of the Centre only reflects that it does not respect the sentiments and identity of the indigenous tribes of the region and other parts of the country,” Marngar said.
He alleged that this is an attempt of the Centre to infringe upon the rights of the citizens.
“We are in a democracy and no one has the right to dictate. We are not going to accept this diktat,” he added.
