No Hindi: Opposition Unity and Pressure Forces Maharashtra Govt to Scrap Three-Language Resolution
The U-turn by the Fadnavis government comes weeks after it had revised the original resolution to clarify that Hindi was not a 'compulsory' third language and that students can choose any Indian language if at least 20 students per grade opt for it.
New Delhi: Maharashtra government has withdrawn its decision resolution on mandating Hindi as the third language in classes 1 to 5 in English and Marathi medium schools. The decision was announced by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis in a press conference on the eve of monsoon session of state legislature.
Fadnavis also announced that a new expert committee will be formed, led by educationist and former Rajya Sabha MP Narendra Jadhav, which will advise on implementing the National Education Policy's (NEP) three-language formula.
'The government will wait for the report from this new committee before deciding from which class the three-language formula should be implemented,' Fadnavis said.
The controversial language mandate was introduced on April 16 through the State Curriculum Framework for School Education 2024. The original government resolution (GR) had stated that Hindi would 'generally' be the third language, alongside the compulsory inclusion of Marathi in all English or Marathi medium schools. This triggered swift political backlash as it was perceived that this effectively made Hindi the mandatory third language.
Subsequently, the state issued a corrigendum on June 17 clarifying that Hindi is not compulsory and students can choose any Indian language if at least 20 students per grade opt for it, with arrangements made for teachers or online instruction.
At the presser, Fadnavis further said, "When Uddhav Thackeray was the Chief Minister, he had accepted the Mashelkar panel's suggestions on implementing three-language policy - Marathi, Hindi and English - from class 1. His cabinet had accepted the panel's suggestion, but he is doing politics now. We have already clarified that Marathi would remain compulsory. They are only protesting against Hindi, but they have accepted English."
Amid the language mandate, opposition leaders and estranged cousins – Uddhav and Raj Thackeray – had, in a rare occurrence, come together to announce a protest against it on July 5. With the government's latest decision, the protest stands cancelled.
Reacting to the decision, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, in a post on X, said, "The decision to impose the Hindi language under the pretext of teaching three languages from the first grade has finally been withdrawn. The government has canceled the two GRs related to this. This cannot be called belated wisdom, because this imposition was withdrawn solely due to the pressure from the Marathi people. Why the government was so adamant about the Hindi language and who exactly was pressuring the government for this remains a mystery."
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