The President, Mr. V. V. Giri, to-day [April 29] appealed to all States in the country to adopt the three-language formula “unreservedly” and implement it “effectively”. Mr. Giri said the Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh had already taken “active steps” to implement the formula which, besides emphasising the importance of Hindi, took due account of the claims of English and the regional languages. He hoped the other States would follow their example. “It is time that our languages are used consciously as a cementing rather than dividing force”, the President said while inaugurating the golden jubilee celebration of the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, T. Nagar [Madras], this morning. He said that according to the three-language formula, the mother tongue should be encouraged and developed to the maximum extent so that it could become the effective medium of teaching and intercourse within the State. It should also become the language of the courts and legislatures in due course. English, a well-developed international language, had been and continued to be the binding force of the intelligentsia of the country. It was the language of science and technology and “we cannot discard it in the foreseeable future”. Hindi, drawing fresh strength from Sanskrit and other major languages, should be cultivated extensively so that it could serve as a common medium and reflect the national consciousness as Sanskrit did in the past and Persian and English did in recent times.
