The “South Zone Save Language Convention” organised here on Friday by the All India Save Education Committee (AISEC) strongly condemned the alleged attempts by the Union government to gradually replace English with Hindi.
A resolution passed at the convention said such an imposition of Hindi in a country where more than 50% of the people did not identify the language as their mothertongue was undemocratic and against the federal structure of the country. It said the VIII Schedule of the Constitution recognised 22 languages as official languages without according superiority to any particular language.
Arguing that English helped in uniting people across the country during the struggle for Independence, it said the language should be included in the VIII Schedule of the Constitution and used as an official language.
The convention said any attempt by the Centre to impose Hindi would result in creating more divisions. It appealed for steps to use mothertongue as the medium of education at all levels in the country.
Recollecting the past struggles in Tamil Nadu against imposition of Hindi, L. Jawahar Nesan, convenor, High Level Committee for Formulating State Education Policy, Tamil Nadu, said the present struggle was to save all the languages in India and it was apt that the convention was organised in Tamil Nadu.
