Among the tribal bodies of the state, the Nyishi Elite Society (NES) has raised the first banner of protest against the recent decision of the centre to make Hindi compulsory up to class 10 in the northeast region. Nyishi Elite Society (NES) president Bengia Tolum on Tuesday appealed to the state government to vehemently oppose any move by the central government to impose Hindi language in the state.
Instead, he suggested the government focus on saving dying tribal languages.
While civil society bodies, NGOs and political parties in other states of the NE region have strongly voiced against the decision of the centre, surprisingly most of the organizations of Arunachal have not responded.
NES has rightly raised concern over the move and hopefully, other tribal bodies will wake up from their slumber and resist the process of
Hindi-isation of the state.
Today, the majority of the tribal languages of the state are almost on the verge of extinction.
UNESCO has listed all the languages of the state as endangered. Hindi already has become lingua franca and is slowly but surely engulfing the tribal languages of the state. These days, the majority of the younger population prefers to speak in Hindi even at home. At this rate, in another decade, there will be very few tribal language speakers remaining in the state.
Sadly, the majority of people do not understand the gravity of the situation. If urgent and decisive measures are not adopted, the tribal languages will die a premature death.