Language wars: Three-language formula or one-nation agenda?

India Today

5 hours ago

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 23, 2025)Late in May, the Tamil Nadu government took the unprecedented step of moving the Supreme Court, seeking the disbursal of over Rs 2,000 crore in funds under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SSS), claiming the Union government had withheld it in a bid to coerce the state into implementing the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. Tamil Nadu has been vociferously opposing the NEP's three-language formula and the tacit pro-Hindi tilt ascribed to it.advertisementThis is the latest flashpoint in the battle between non-Hindi-speaking states and the Centre over the NEP. On May 9, the apex court had dismissed a plea filed by advocate G.S. Mani seeking directions to the governments of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal to implement the NEP. The court stated that its powers under Article 32 of the Constitution were limited to ensuring the protection of citizens' fundamental rights and not mandating policy decisions on state governments. The aggrieved states allege that attempts to 'impose Hindi' are part of a grand design of the Sangh parivar and, by extension, the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre, to undermine local cultures and languages and imperil India's cultural diversity.After Tamil Nadu's impassioned protests, it was Maharashtra's turn to reach boiling point. A rising chorus of protests has forced the Devendra Fadnavis regime to backpedal on making Hindi the compulsory third language after Marathi and English in Classes I to V. The objecters, not counting activists, ranged across the ideological spectrum, from the Congress, Shiv Sena Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray to CPI(M) and Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Together, this seemingly unlikely coalition railed against the 'imposition of Hindi at the cost of Marathi'.advertisement
This has been the crux of the battle in non-Hindi speaking states, and Maharashtra's case typified it. After a government resolution (GR) in mid-April made Hindi mandatory for the primary classes in the state, stakeholders immediately cried foul, saying this would involve additional challenges for their young wards. Mahendra Ganpule, a former head of the Maharashtra School Principals Association, feels forcing 6-10-year-olds to learn a third language, would reduce the mind space available for crucial subjects like maths. Ganpule also pointed out that, unlike the decision on English, there had been no consultations with experts on the Hindi issue.GROWING ANTIPATHYOn April 22, school education minister Dadaji Bhuse said they were staying the order on Hindi. Although Fadnavis denied it, it is evident the impending local body polls led to the rethink. BJP sources say they did not want to be stuck with the 'anti-Marathi' tag, especially considering the belligerent support of non-Marathi groups for the party in Maharashtra. The Hindi issue also formed a conducive backdrop for politically estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj Thackeray to extend overtures for a possible rapprochement. Pratap Sarnaik, transport minister from the Shiv Sena (Eknath Shine faction), has stoked the fires further by publicly claiming Hindi has become Mumbai's 'bolibhasha (lingua franca)'.advertisement
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are hardly the only states militating against Hindi. There's a growing impatience with it in states such as Punjab, Telangana, Kerala and West Bengal. The battle has also sparked a larger debate on the need to protect India's linguistic diversity, with a fear that regional languages and dialects are being steamrolled by the Centre's push for Hindi. In Tamil Nadu, where the anti-Hindi agitation dates back to 1937 when the C. Rajagopalachari-led Madras Presidency government tried to make Hindi compulsory in schools, the debate has reopened old fissures and anxieties. Chief minister M.K. Stalin has called the NEP an instrument of 'Hindi colonialism'; even as his son and deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin posted on X that this is not just a 'language struggle, but also an ethnic struggle to protect Tamil culture'. Stalin also crossed swords with Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan after the latter allegedly threatened to withhold funds till Tamil Nadu complied.advertisementEarlier this year, the Punjab government had made Punjabi a mandatory subject in the state's schools, saying students will have to study it as a primary subject to clear Class X. This came after it opposed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) draft norms for holding Class X board exams twice a year, claiming Punjabi has been left out of the subject list. The Telangana government too has now enforced Telugu as a mandatory language for students from Class I to X in all schools.Last year, West Bengal implemented its State Education Policy (SEP), 2023 which, experts say, is essentially a covert replication of the NEP. The state government had earlier claimed it would not adopt the NEP, but the SEP introduces several NEP-like reforms, including the semester system in schools, interdisciplinary studies, four-year undergraduate courses and abolishing the detention system. The Mamata Banerjee-led administration's receptiveness is evident in its adoption of the three-language policy. But Hindi is a touchy point. Prof. Tarun Kanti Naskar, general secretary of the All India Save Education Committee, described the NEP-in-disguise thus: 'Hindi is not mandatory in the NEP, but the Centre has left no doubt that it is the only third optional language. Bengal has done nothing to protest, unlike Tamil Nadu.'advertisementThe NCERT texts are another front in the battle, the provocation starting with the titles themselves. For instance, the Standard VI and VII English textbooks are named 'Poorvi' as against the previous 'Honeysuckle' and 'Honeycomb', respectively, while the math text has been rechristened 'Ganit Prakash'. A flummoxed Kerala government says this is 'against federal principles and constitutional values' and a bid to 'foist Hindi on Malayalis'. The NCERT has also drawn flak for dropping all references to the Mughals and the Delhi Sultanate in the Standard VII textbooks, while adding references to obscure Indian dynasties, the Kumbh Mela, 'sacred geography' and central initiatives like 'Make in India'. Critics have panned the attempt to airbrush and politicise history under the guise of decolonisation.An NCERT official, however, says the new language texts were named after 'pan-Indian' musical instruments, ragas and concepts such as Bansuri, Malhaar, Sarangi and Khyal. Most would point out that the northward tilt fairly shines through, but the official says this nomenclature aligns with NEP's vision of embracing joyful learning, cultural rootedness and integration of arts and music into education.advertisementMIGRATORY PATTERNSThe official push for Hindi comes at a time when economic migration from the economically weak Hindi-speaking states is growing, thus leading to a rising presence of this linguistic cohort across India. In Maharashtra, for instance, the 2011 census revealed that, in Mumbai, respondents identifying Hindi as their mother tongue had grown by around 40 per cent from 2.6 million in 2001 to around 3.6 million. The Marathi manoos is still the city's largest ethno-linguistic group, but their numbers fell from 4.5 million in 2001 to 4.4 million in 2011.In fact, the saturation in urban centres like Mumbai has led to many north Indians shifting to smaller towns and even villages where they work in hotels, restaurants and as labour in industries and farms. This has led to nativist parties like the Shiv Sena and the MNS choosing to focus their energies on opposing Hindi speakers.Former IAS officer, author and president of the state language advisory committee Laxmikant Deshmukh has written to Fadnavis opposing the move to make Hindi mandatory from Class I. He considers the imposition 'a cultural attack on Marathi by the Hindi speakers' while pointing out how the migrants, largely, do not bother to learn Marathi.Author and historian Manu S. Pillai says he doesn't see any reason why Hindi should receive 'special state patronage'. 'It's a dated notion that nations must have a common language to stick together. We are a diverse country and instead of pushing our diversity into a political straitjacket, we should let all our languages thrive,' he says.
GET OUT...An anti-Hindi protest byDMK workers in Chennai
AN IDEOLOGICAL PROJECTG.N. Devy, cultural scholar and the man behind the People's Linguistic Survey of India, notes that the number of Hindi speakers in India is inflated, with 'Hindi subsuming many smaller languages'. According to the 2011 Census, the country had over 528 million Hindi speakers, but that figure combined 206 million people whose mother tongues had been grouped under Hindi, including Bhojpuri (51 million speakers), Chhattisgarhi (16 million) and Kumaoni (2 million). So, the actual number of native Hindi speakers is around 320 million. Considering that the census had a base of 1,210 million, this meant that at best a third of the population has Hindi as mother tongue. 'How can 30 per cent of the population impose their will on the other 70 per cent? This is not right in any political modality,' says Devy.His questioning is in line with the perception that the BJP-RSS have long been pushing a unitarian model on India when it comes to religion, language and culture. Author-academician Apoorvanand says the 'Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan' push was linked to the Hindutva project, but the emphasis on one language, one nation, one religion and one culture was in line with a European model of nationalism.BJP national spokesperson Prem Shukla dismisses such criticism, saying the three-language policy has been in place since the 1960s, even before the birth of the present-day BJP. 'The NEP has, in fact, liberalised language teaching by changing this to English, the local mother tongue, and another Indian language,' he added, while denying claims that the BJP was trying to foist Hindi on anyone.
Apoorvanand notes that the three-language formula adopted in the 1960s was not based on pedagogic and educational principles. It was done to integrate the country by learning a language not spoken in that state. For instance, a Khasi speaker could learn Bengali, and a Bihari could learn Telugu. But the 'Hindi belt' adopted Hindi, English and Sanskrit as part of the formula, even as some southern states like Karnataka and Kerala were teaching Hindi voluntarily. 'The Hindi states refuse to integrate with the non-Hindi-speaking states and their culture, but are now forcing the non-Hindi ones to integrate with them,' Apoorvanand concludes.Anil Shidore of the MNS points to other attempts to push the cultural dominance of Hindi. For instance, the Reserve Bank of India mandates that banks also conduct their business in the local language. The MNS had asked the Indian Banks' Association to provide such services and put up boards in Marathi and also launched a short-lived protest to ensure this was implemented. 'This is part of the Sangh's 'soft power experiment', trying to attain cultural hegemony using entry points like curriculum, books, the education system,' says Shidore.In the end, it all comes down to whether groups and communities can respect each other and try not to straitjacket the other. In his book, India: A Linguistic Civilisation, Devy argues that the 'idea of India' can never be a singular one. 'Plurality and diversity are its inalienable attributes,' he points out. Amen to that.—with Arkamoy Datta MajumdarSubscribe to India Today MagazineTune InMust Watch