Getting support to make Hindi official language in UN easy: Swaraj

Ahead of the 11th World Hindi Conference, External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj on Friday said that garnering the requisite two-thirds majority in the United Nations (UN) to make Hindi an official language was an easy task.

Addressing a press conference here, Swaraj said that the impediment for making Hindi an official language in the UN was the requirement for all nations who are supporting the proposal to share the expenses that will be incurred, thus making it difficult for countries that are economically weak to support the agenda.

"If we can get the support of 177 nations out of 193 member nations for the implementation of a World Yoga Day, then we can easily get 129 nations to support this agenda. The problem is the requirement for all nations to share the expenses, which the smaller, financially weak nations will not be able to bear," Swaraj said.

She further stated that apart from India, countries like Germany, Japan had tried to get this rule annulled, but the UN would not budge.

"Like Japan and Germany, we offered to bear all expenses ourselves, but the UN didn't comply," Swaraj added.

However, Swaraj said that they made some major inroads into getting Hindi recognised at a global platform like the UN, saying that they had started a Twitter account in Hindi last month and also started broadcasting news in Hindi around the same time.

Swaraj further highlighted the establishment of a World Hindi Secretariat in Mauritius, which President Ram Nath Kovind had inaugurated in March, as another step towards Hindi getting recognised worldwide.

She also said that this would be the first time that the Indian delegation would be travelling to the Conference, which is slated to be held from August 18 to August 20, in a special flight.