The Voice of the People Party (VPP) in Meghalaya on Friday said the move of the BJP-led NDA government to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to class X in the Northeast is an attempt to convert India into a country where there will be one culture, one language and one religion. Such a move would endanger the identity of the indigenous people, it said.
“This is an attempt by the present BJP-led NDA government to convert India into a country where there will be one culture, one language and one religion. This is also the aim and objective of the RSS to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra,” VPP chief Ardent M Basaiawmoit said in a statement.
Basaiawmoit said that Hindi is a very difficult subject to learn for non-Hindi speakers, and this will put unnecessary pressure on the students.
In Meghalaya, English is the official language and the medium of instruction in Schools and Colleges, he said, adding, “Therefore making Hindi mandatory in schools will be a burden for school children.”
Asserting that Hindi should be the third language and not compulsory, the VPP president said that the Constitution of India has made it very clear that Hindi and English are the official languages of the country.
He further observed that the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the decision of the chief ministers of the northeast states amounted to imposition of Hindi on the non-Hindi speaking population of the Northeast.
Cautioning that such a move would endanger the identity of the indigenous people, Basaiawmoit said that instead of imposing Hindi on the people of the state, the Government of India should expedite the inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
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