Kasturirangan says no efforts to impose Hindi

Former ISRO chief K Kasturirangan, who heads a panel on new National Education Policy, clarified that there were no efforts to impose Hindi even as he dismissed reports of dissent against the removal of the Hindi clause.

Political parties, especially in the state of Tamil Nadu, had strongly opposed the three-language formula proposed in the draft National Education Policy (NEP) alleging that it was tantamount to thrusting Hindi language on non-Hindi speaking states.

Kasturirangan asserted that there was never an attempt to impose Hindi.

"We had two approved versions where one of them did not convey the spirit of the language policy as we wanted to give. We replaced it with the para that does not mention Hindi," he said.

"There was never an intention to impose Hindi. The main difference between the education policy of 1968, 1986, 1992 and the present one is that the three-language formula is acceptable in the earlier ones, but there is flexibility in the new policy," the scientist added.

Revising the draft education policy, the Centre dropped the contentious provision of compulsory teaching of Hindi in non-Hindi speaking states after the three-language proposal sparked outrage.

The revised draft of the NEP says, "Students who wish to change one or more of the three languages they are studying may do so in Grade 6 or Grade 7, so long as they are able to still demonstrate proficiency in three languages (one language at the literature level) in their modular Board Examinations some time during secondary school."