Union Govt has issued no direction to make Hindi compulsory or even optional in Assam: CM

April 9: In a statement issued by the Home ministry on Friday, it was stated that Home Minister Amit Shah has said that 22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in the eight states of the North East. Also, nine tribal communities of the North East have converted their dialects’ scripts to Devanagari. Apart from this, all the eight states of the North East have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X. Reacting to this on Saturday, Assam Chief Minister, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that the Union Government has not given any direction to the state to make Hindi compulsory in the schools.

Speaking to the media, CM Dr Sarma said, “In Assam, Assamese is the mother tongue. The state government in consultation with Asom Sahitya Sabha and other literary organisations of the tribes residing in Assam has taken a decision of 4-language policy which was also appreciated in the state legislative assembly. Our intention is that a student in Assam should know Assamese, knowledge of any language of the tribes and knowledge of Hindi and English. The central government has given no direction to make Hindi as a medium of instruction in Assam. However, due to the opposition of Bodo Sahitya Sabha, we have not made public announcement of this 4-language formula”

“Amit Shah ji has only told that the students should learn Hindi. Even I too hold the view that they should learn Hindi, English. But the Home Minister has not said that the students should start learning Hindi in lieu of Assamese. A wrong interpretation of the statement of the Home Minister is doing the rounds since early morning. He said that after learning one’s own mother tongue, a student should learn Hindi so that he/she could get jobs in both government as well as private sector in Delhi, UP, Maharasthra etc or can also find easy to pursue educational activities. In many public programmes, I too lay stress on the fact that after learning mother tongue, boys and girls should learn English to move ahead in life,” added the Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister further said, “We have received no letter from the centre to make Hindi not only compulsory but even optional in Assam.”

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