IMPOSING LANGUAGE AN ASSAULT ON INDIA’S DIVERSITY

The State cannot be allowed to interfere, as a matter of law, since it relates to the future of the child. This is indeed a matter of privacy and personal liberty

- KAPIL SIBAL

THE new National Curriculum Framework (NCF) recently launched by Dharmendra Pradhan recommended that a child’s mother tongue should be the primary medium of instruction, both in public and private schools up to Standard VIII. In fact, the NCF of 2000 indicated that the medium of instruction should ideally be the mother tongue at all stages of school education. This is because globally, educationists recognise that children learn best when taught in their mother tongue, especially in the early years of childhood. This allows the child to absorb much more than when taught in a nonfamiliar language.

India is uniquely placed because of the diversity of its population. Our regional languages are rich in literature. That wealth is part of our cultural heritage and must be protected. It is perhaps for that reason that linguistic minorities have the protection of the Constitution.

Recently, the home minister cited the recommendation of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language, headed by him, that the medium of instruction should mandatorily be Hindi in all technical and non-technical institutions including central universities, and that gradually, English should be replaced with Hindi as the medium of instruction in those institutions. This would apply not only to the IITs and IIMs but also to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas, which fall in the category of non-technical institutions.

In this context, the Committee also recommended that recruitment to the central services should also be in Hindi and that the mandatory English language question papers be discontinued. This way, employees will acquire the requisite working knowledge of Hindi.