New Delhi:BJP leader C T Ravi on Tuesday said there is nothing wrong in encouraging Hindi and regional languages instead of English and claimed that the Narendra Modi-led government has been promoting mother tongues in different parts of the country.
The party's national general secretary, who hails from Karnataka and is in charge of the BJP's affairs in Tamil Nadu, refuted criticism from opposition leaders Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin that the Centre was imposing Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states. Linking such a mentality to the use of English, he urged people to come out of the "colonial mindset".
Vijayan had recently taken exception to the recommendations of a parliamentary panel which suggested that the medium of instruction in central technical and non-technical higher education institutes such as IITs in Hindi-speaking states should be Hindi and the respective local languages elsewhere. It further said the use of English should be made optional.
The Kerala CM had sought Prime Minister Modi's intervention in the matter. Ravi said the recommendations promote Hindi in place of English but not in the place of regional languages such as Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Marathi. If a leader writes for the "pride of Malayalam or the pride of Tamil", our party welcomes it but if he writes in favour of English, then this is not appropriate, he said. The BJP leader said leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, too, supported the promotion of Hindi and regional languages. (PTI)
