While nine Vice-Chancellors of universities in the four southern States, meeting at Dharwar, have agreed that higher education should be given through the media of the regional languages and English, a group of members of Parliament are carrying on a campaign for the use of Hindi in all publications of the Government of India. The parliamentarians have suggested that the Central Information Bureau should supply information in Hindi about defence, science and technology, agriculture, education and industry.
The Central Government is, of course, anxious to introduce Hindi wherever possible and the new Defence Production Board, which is to control the ordnance factories, has been called the “Raksha Utpadan Board” … The article we published yesterday on “Why the World learns English” shows that even in Europe, where local languages are highly advanced, English is the favoured foreign language. But the Government of India wants English to be treated as a “library language” for higher education despite the fact historical circumstance has made it familiar in the world of business and industry as well as in schools and colleges.
