MSF questions Amit Shah on status of Hindi
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 16 2019:
Coming out strongly against the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on September 14 to make Hindi the National language, the Manipuri Students Federation (MSF) has accused the Government of destroying its own claim of the country being the world's largest democracy and priding itself in the motto of unity in diversity.
A statement issued by the publicity secretary of MSF today explained that the Constitution of India does not mention that a certain language should be the National language and to make Hindi the National language is an attempt to suppress the 1635 other languages in the country.
Hindi is not spoken all over the country and is mostly spoken in the central region of the country.
Maharasthra has Marathi, Tamil Nadu has Tamil, Konkani is spoken in Goa, Malayalam is spoken in Kerala, Kanada is the main language in Karanataka, Oriya is spoken in Odisha, Telugu in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Bengali in Bengal, Punjabi in Punjab, Assamese in Assam, Urdu in Jammu and Kashmir, Kok Borok in Tripura, Mizo in Mizoram, Nagamese in Nagaland.
Even in Gujarat, the birth place of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gujarati is spoken instead of Hindi.
MSF informed that according to Article 29 of the Indian Constitution, if a community has its own language and written dialect, then the community has the right to conserve and protect the language.
Hindi is just one of the 22 languages which are included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
Manipuri language is even in the said Schedule, MSF added.
At a time when there is a fear that the future generation might completely forget their own mother tongue and language due to the trend of imparting education only through English language since the early age, the attempt to impose Hindi as the National language will only make the future generation disregard Manipuri language in favour of other language.
Stating that it is vehemently against forcefully imposing Hindi on the people of Manipur, MSF informed that a Gujarat High Court ruling has even announced that Hindi is not a National language and instead, it is just an official language.
MSF views the 'One Nation, One Religion, One Language' drive of the current Government as an attempt to eliminate the culture, history and identity of the smaller communities of the country.
Many attempts were made in the past to destroy the Manipuri language as seen by the incident of the burning of the Puyas and the replacing the Meitei Mayek with Bengali.
Even today, there are not many who can read and write in the mother script of Manipur, MSF remarked.
On the other hand, MSF urged the State Government to do the needful to promote and conserve the Manipuri language.
It also appealed to all the CSOs, clubs and associations as well as the public to work together to save the Manipuri language.
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