Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that Assam and all other 7 states of the North East have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X, a statement issued by the Home ministry stated.

Presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.

He said that 20,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited in eight states of the North East, adding that nine tribal communities of the North East have converted their dialects’ scripts to Devanagari.”

He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.

Opposition cries ‘imposition’

Home Minister Amit Shah’s pitch for the Hindi language provoked trenchant criticism on Friday, with opposition parties calling it an assault on India’s pluralism and asserting they will thwart the move to impose “Hindi imperialism”.

The President of Assam Jaitya Parishad(AJP), Lurinjyoti Gogoi has reacted to it and said “imposition of Hindi” in the Northeast up to Class X “won’t be accepted at any cost”

Demanding immediate withdrawal of the order, he said that the effort to take away the mother tongue from the indigenous people of the North East would not be accepted.

Assam and the region follow two language policy through which besides mother tongue English is also taught making Hindi an optional subject for class IX and X. Hindi is mandatory now till Class VII.

Also Read: Pakistan PM Imran Khan to Face No-Trust Vote Today