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Parl panel advocates deeper integration of Hindi and regional languages
People familiar with the contents of the report said it primarily advocates strengthening the relationship between regional languages and Hindi for wider use of the latter
Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday presented the 13th report of the Parliamentary committee on official language to the President, Droupadi Murmu.
People familiar with the contents of the report said it primarily advocates strengthening the relationship between regional languages and Hindi for wider use of the latter.
The report, a government official who didn’t want to be named said - “The report dwells on regional languages and Hindi to communicate with each other so that Hindi has a wider use and acceptability, without competing with any other language.”
The 13th report, this person said, also talks about “developing and promoting Indian languages in line with the Viksit Bharat (developed India) 2047 plan of the government; as well as the use of artificial intelligence and other technological tools to enrich Indian languages and establish them as languages of public administration, education and scientific use”.
Shah has often said that Hindi is a “companion” of other Indian languages rather than an “adversary.”
In June last year, he said “Hindi can never be an adversary to any Indian language, but a companion to all. It is with the collaboration of both Hindi and other Indian languages that we can uplift self-pride using languages”.
On foreign languages, Shah said then that “The foreign languages should never be opposed. But, our purpose should be to glorify, speak and think in our language. A completely developed nation would only be conceptualised when our languages are glorified to express our heritage.”
The Committee of Parliament on Official Language was constituted in 1976 under section 4 of the Official Languages Act, 1963. According to this section, it is the duty of the Committee to review the progress made in the use of Hindi for official purposes and submit a report to the President making recommendations thereon and the President shall cause the report to be laid before each house of Parliament.
The committee has 30 members - 20 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha and Shah is its Chairperson.
Officials said that for the smooth monitoring of the progress of work related to the official language, the committee has been divided into three sub-committees. So far, these three sub-committees have inspected more than 18,572 offices and have recorded the oral evidence of approximately 882 distinguished individuals, including chief justices of high courts, chief ministers of states, and governors.
