Three-language formula should not be tinkered with: Congress

Hitting out at Union Home Minister Amit Shah over his remarks on Hindi, the Congress on Saturday said that the three-language formula should not be tinkered with and no indication should be given of a rethink which will create strife and unrest in the country.

Asserting that Hindi is the official language of India, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said, "When you see the Consitution of the country, it clearly recognises India's diversity. The Constitution recognises 22 languages. They are all Indian languages spoken by a large number of people."

"We should not stir up controversies on emotive and sensitive issues which have been settled by the maturity of India's Constitution makers and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The three-language formula must not be tinkered with and no indication should be given of a rethink which will create strife and unrest in the country," Sharma said while addressing a presser here.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah's call to culturally unify India with Hindi as its national language on Saturday triggered a row when some opposition leaders trained guns on him demanding to reconsider his appeal as it "poses a danger to the national unity".

Speaking as chief guest at a function to grace Hindi Divas Samaroh, Shah earlier in the day said that while unity in diversity is India's defining trait, a common language is needed as a culturally unifying factor.

Shah, in his address, appealed to people to accept Hindi as the national language to get connected while asserting that the growth of Hindi will never be at the cost of any other language and added that Hindi is the language of coexistence.

He said there was a unanimous consensus for Hindi as a national language in the Constituent Assembly, in spite of the Assembly's sheer diversity.

On this day in 1949, the Constituent Assembly adopted Hindi written in Devanagari as the official language of the Union.