Several non-Hindi speaking students pursuing PhD and MPhil courses at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have alleged that the administration was “blatantly” imposing the language on them.
They alleged that the administration told them their projects will not be accepted if they failed to transliterate their name, the name of the centre and topic of dissertation or thesis into Hindi.
Wednesday was the last date for submitting MPhil dissertations and PhD thesis, and the issue came to light when some non-Hindi speaking students complained of having trouble doing transliteration.
Central govt guidelines
However, JNU Assistant Registrar (Evaluation) Sajjan Singh said the students were asked to transliterate into Hindi last year also. “According to Central government guidelines, degree certificates are issued in English and Hindi since last year,” Mr. Singh said.
Tamil research scholar Arun Kumar, whose dissertation topic is “Syntax of Tamil and Korean”, alleged he was “forced” to transliterate his name and the topic into Hindi. “They are planning to issue degrees with our names transliterated into Hindi. There is institutional protection for Hindi despite it not being our national language,” said Mr. Kumar, a native of Tamil Nadu.
Another PhD scholar from the Centre for Linguistics said it was “blatant imposition of Hindi”. “...We are forced to do this. Technical words cannot be transliterated,” said a scholar, who is a Bengali.
JNUSU general secretary Satarupa Chakraborty said, “Whatever the government is trying to impose on the people of the country, the JNU administration immediately tries to follow it without any discussion. This time, it’s imposition of Hindi in a Central university.”
