Nation will be empowered only by promoting all Indian languages: Amit Shah

PTI, Aug 4, 2023, 6:51 PM IST

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday that Hindi is not in competition with local languages and the nation will be empowered only by promoting all Indian languages.

Charing the 38th meeting of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language here, Shah also said there can be no other favourable moment for the promotion of Indian languages as Prime Minister Narendra Modi proudly presents Hindi and all other Indian languages on global platforms, an official statement said.

Hindi is not in competition with local languages, the nation will be empowered only by promoting all Indian languages, Shah said.

The home minister said Prime Minister Modi has taken the initiative to start engineering and medical courses in 10 languages and soon these courses will be available in all Indian languages. That moment will mark the beginning of the rise of local languages and official languages, he said.

The prime minister has never given a single speech in Parliament in English and the union ministers of the government also try to give speeches in Indian languages. This gives a lot of momentum to the movement of connecting different languages, he said.

Shah said acceptance of official language does not come from law or circular but from goodwill, inspiration and encouragement.

He said Indian languages and their dictionaries remained intact even after the period of being ruled over, which is a great achievement and the languages have worked to unite the country.

The home minister said that vin the year of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’, Prime Minister Modi has kept ‘Panch Pran’ in front of the country, out of which two ‘Pran’ are respect of heritage and erasing the signs of slavery.

He said that for 100 per cent implementation of these two ‘Pran’, all the Indian languages and the official language will have to show their strength.

Shah said the respect of heritage is incomplete without the respect of language and acceptance of official language will come only when everyone will give respect to local languages.

He said there is a need to develop acceptance for the official language without any kind of opposition even if its pace is slow.

The home minister said since independence till 2014, nine volumes of report of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language were submitted. Three volumes have been approved since 2019 , he said.

He said these volumes have been prepared subject-wise and the theme of 12th volume is ‘Simplification’.

During the meeting, the 12th volume of the report of the committee of parliament on official language was also approved which will be presented to the President.