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Opposition for Hindi as Compulsory School Subject

Last updated on July 11th, 2024 Posted on April 12, 2022 by admin1  2550

In Context 

  • The Centre’s move to make Hindi a compulsory language in schools across the eight states in the northeast has annoyed various organisations in the region.

Background 

  • The Home Minister earlier  said Hindi would be made a must up to Class 10 in the region’s schools describing Hindi as “the language of India”.
  • He stated that 22,000 teachers have been recruited to teach Hindi in the north-eastern States.
  • He had, however, clarified that Hindi should be an alternative to English and not local languages.

Opposition by States 

  • States in the northeast opposed this move as it is one kind of imposition. 
  • Hindi can be an optional subject and English is a preferred medium of instruction besides the local tongue.
  • Many northeastern states have condemned the move as “anti-democracy, anti-Constitution” and against the federal structure of the country.
    • The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution gives us the protection against any kind of imposition
About Sixth Schedule of the Constitution

  • It provides for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram to safeguard the rights of the tribal population in these states.
    • This special provision is provided under Article 244(2) and Article 275(1) of the Constitution.
  • It seeks to safeguard the rights of the tribal population through the formation of Autonomous District Councils (ADC). 
    • ADCs are bodies representing a district to which the Constitution has given varying degrees of autonomy within the state legislature.   
  • Features: 
    • Provisions have been made for the creation of the District Councils and regional councils for the exercise of certain legislative and judicial powers. However, their jurisdiction is subject to the jurisdiction of the concerned High Court.
      • They have powers to form courts to hear cases where both parties are members of Scheduled Tribes and the maximum sentence is less than 5 years in prison.
      • They also have powers to levy taxes, fees and tolls on buildings, land, animals, vehicles, boats, entry of goods into the area, roads, ferries, bridges, employment and income and general taxes for the maintenance of schools and roads.
  • The Acts of Parliament or the State Legislature do not apply to autonomous districts and autonomous regions or apply with specified modifications and exceptions.
  • the Governor is vested with powers regarding the councils. He/she, by public notification, may:
    • Include or exclude any new area.
    • Create a new autonomous district.
    • Define the boundaries of any autonomous district.
    • Increase or decrease the area of an existing autonomous district.
    • Alter the name of any autonomous district.
  • Benefits: 
    • It was incorporated to protect the rights of the minority tribals living within a larger state dominated by the majority.
    • It allows for greater political autonomy and decentralised governance in certain tribal areas of the Northeast.

How widely is Hindi spoken in India?

  • The 2011 linguistic census accounts for 121 mother tongues, including 22 languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
    •  Hindi is the most widely spoken, with 52.8 crore individuals, or 43.6% of the population, declaring it as their mother tongue. 
    • The next highest is Bengali, mother tongue for 97 lakh (8%) — less than one-fifth of Hindi’s count (Chart 2)
    • In terms of the number of people who know Hindi, the count crosses more than half the country.
    •  Nearly 13.9 crore (over 11%) reported Hindi as their second language, which makes it either the mother tongue or second language for nearly 55% of the population.

  • Hindi has been India’s predominant mother tongue over the decades, its share in the population rising in every succeeding census. 
    • A number of mother tongues other than Hindi have faced a decline in terms of share, although the dip has been marginal in many cases. 
      • For example, Bengali’s share in the population declined by just 0.14 percentage points from 1971 (8.17%) to 2011 (8.03%). 
      • In comparison, Malayalam (1.12 percentage points) and Urdu (1.03 points) had higher declines among the mother tongues with at least 1 crore speakers in 2011. Punjabi’s share, on the other hand, rose from 2.57% to 2.74%.
    • Perhaps absolute numbers can present a better picture of Hindi’s growth. Between 1971 and 2011, the number of individuals who declared their mother tongue as Hindi multiplied 2.6 times, from 20.2 crore to 52.8 crore. 

How widely is English spoken?

  • English, alongside Hindi, is one of the two official languages of the central government, it is not among the 22 languages in the 8th Schedule
  •  It is one of the 99 non-scheduled languages. In terms of mother tongue, India had just 2.6 lakh English speakers in 2011 — a tiny fraction of the 121 crore people counted in that census.
  • As a second language, English is preferred over Hindi in parts of the Northeast. Among the 17.6 lakh with Manipuri (an 8th Schedule language) as their mother tongue in 2011, 4.8 lakh declared their second language as English, compared to 1.8 lakh for Hindi.
About Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India

  • The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India lists the official languages of the Republic of India.
  • Part XVII of the Indian Constitution deals with the official languages in Articles 343 to 351.
  • The Constitutional provisions relating to the Eighth Schedule occur in articles 344(1) and 351 of the Constitution.
    • Article 344(1): It provides for the constitution of an official language Commission by the President, which shall consist of a Chairman and such other members representing the different languages specified in the Eighth Schedule to make recommendations to the President for the progressive use of Hindi for official purposes of the Union.
    • Article 345: Official language or languages of a State subject to the provisions of Article 346 and 347.
      • It would thus appear that the Eighth Schedule was intended to promote the progressive use of Hindi and for the enrichment and promotion of that language.
    • Article 351: It provides for enriching the Hindi language by assimilating in it the forms, style and expressions used in the languages specified in the Eighth Schedule so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India.
  • The eighth schedule includes the recognition of the following 22 languages:
    • Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri are the 22 languages presently in the eighth schedule to the Constitution.
      • Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution. Subsequently, Sindhi was added in 1967; Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added in 1992; and Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santali were added by the 92nd Amendment Act of 2003.

Source:TH

 
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