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Speak to children in mother tongue, Amit Shah advises parents
Union home minister Amit Shah said the country would not have faced many problems had Vallabhbhai Patel been made India’s first prime minister.
New Delhi: Basic education to children should be imparted in local languages and no one should have an inferiority complex about not knowing English, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Monday, adding that the country would not have faced many problems had Vallabhbhai Patel been made India’s first prime minister.
Addressing students, parents and teachers at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya in Delhi during an event to mark the 147th birth anniversary of Patel, Shah said children should read up more on Patel, the country’s first home minister, to know about his vision for a united India with deep democratic roots.
“A man who is remembered long after his death can only be called great, that was Sardar... There is a public opinion in the country that if Sardar Patel was made the first PM of India, the country would not have faced the many problems it is facing today,” Shah said.
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Shah asked parents to speak to their children at home only in their mother tongue, saying that basic education should be imparted in local languages.
“We should learn as many languages from around the world, but we should not leave our native language. Language is a form of expression and not of your intelligence,” he said. “No one should have an inferiority complex in not knowing English. You will have to keep your mother tongue alive.”
His comments come amid a swirling political row between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Opposition parties over the government’s language policy. A number of opposition parties, especially those from southern states, say that the BJP is trying to push Hindi in its policies at the cost of regional tongues but the Union government has dismissed these concerns and said it wanted to help all Indian languages.
Sardar Patel Vidyalaya is run by the Gujarat Education Trust.
During his address, Shah recalled Patel’s role in bringing together and merging more than 500 princely states with the Union of Indian after Independence: “Had Sardar Patel not been there, India’s map would not have been like it is today... he brought Lakshadweep, Jodhpur, Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir together.”
“He was not only a man of imagination but he also worked very hard to implement his vision,” he added.
Shah said it was unfortunate that Patel’s contributions were not acknowledged for a very long time in the country. “It is unfortunate that it took many years for a person like Sardar Patel to get Bharat Ratna. The country took a lot of time to build his memorial and to propagate his views among the youth,” he said.
Patel was conferred the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour, posthumously in 1991, 41 years after his death in 1950.
Shah also paid condolences to the families of those who died in a bridge collapse incident in Gujarat’s Morbi district on Sunday. He said the entire country was saddened by the tragic accident.
Shah also said the Narendra Modi government worked to deepen constitutional and democratic values, and strengthened the security of the country. “It is due to the efforts of the Modi government that no one can even dare to threaten our armed forces. Our government has also strengthened the economy, and therefore, India has become the fifth largest economy of the world,” he said.
He said Patel was the inspiration behind the Amul cooperative model, and the former home minister worked to implement the cooperative movement on the ground. Shah also said that Patel laid the foundations of the central service, central police, intelligence bureau and many other institutions.
“We will have to decide now where our country will be in terms of research and development, health, infrastructure, security etc., when we celebrate the 100th year of our Independence,” he added.
The Union government has been observing October 31 as ‘Rashtriya Ekta Diwas’ (National Unity Day) since 2014 to mark the birth anniversary of Patel, who was born on October 31, 1875 at Nadiad in Gujarat.
