GUWAHATI, 10 Apr: The Asam Sahitya Sabha, a century-old literary-cultural organisation of Assam, has criticised the central government’s move to make Hindi a compulsory subject till Class 10 in the northeastern states.
The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), which also holds significant clout in the state, demanded that the government concentrate on conserving and promoting indigenous languages.
In a statement, Asam Sahitya Sabha secretary-general Jadav Chandra Sharma said that if Hindi is made compulsory, the future of indigenous languages and Assamese as a link language will be endangered.
Sharma also said that the sabha had been pressing the state government for the inclusion of Assamese in CBSE and English medium schools, but no progress has been made in this regard so far.
Sabha, an influential organisation constituted in 1917, works for the development of the Assamese language, literature and culture.
AASU chief adviser Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharjya asserted that the move is a threat to the future of the indigenous languages of the NE region.
“We strongly oppose the move by the government to make Hindi compulsory at the expense of Assamese and other mother languages,” he said in a tweet.
“It is a threat to the indigenous culture and languages of the Northeast,” Bhattacharjya said, demanding that the government immediately withdraw the decision.
Opposition parties in Assam have also criticised the Centre’s announcement that all the eight northeastern states have agreed to Hindi being a compulsory subject till Class 10 and described it as a “step towards cultural imperialism.”
The opposition parties, including the Congress and the Assam Jatiya Parishad, have demanded the withdrawal of the decision, which it said is against the interests of the people of the region.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said at a meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee in New Delhi on 7 April that all NE states have agreed to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class 10.
He had also said that nine tribal communities of the region have converted their dialects’ scripts to Devanagari and 22,000 Hindi teachers have been recruited for the eight states. (PTI)
