Is Hindi compulsory under NEP?

The New Education Plan (NEP) recommends a three-language policy. It says that primary education
must be in the regional language, in addition to which one must choose and learn another Indian
language, and thirdly one may choose a foreign language.

If you are in Tamil Nadu, it is compulsory to have primary education in Tamil. Apart from that the
third foreign language will most probably be English. For some reason, many people have decided in
their minds that the second Bharatiya language would be ‘Hindi’. This misunderstanding causes
major problems.

The NEP has NOT stated that Hindi was compulsory. The only stipulation is that at least two Indian
languages are required. Some may ask, ‘What can we learn in Tamil Nadu as second language other
than Hindi?’ Let us see.

In the district along the western border of Tamil Nadu - including Coimbatore, Theni, Nilgiris,
Tiruppur and Kanyakumari - there are significant numbers of Malayalam speakers. They can learn
Malayalam as a second language. The Tamils there can also learn Malayalam which will not only be
easy but also useful for them. Similarly, there are a lot of Telugu speaking people in North Tamil
Nadu and in those districts, Telugu may be offered as the second Bharatiya language for students to
study. In districts such as Krishnagiri, they can study Kannada. The aborigines of our soil in the
Nilgiris district will be able to learn their mother tongues such as Toda, Kurumba and Baduga.
Similarly in Thanjavur there are many Marathi speakers. There are a lot of Telugu speakers in places
like Madurai, Salem and Dharmapuri.

If you look at Chennai city you can learn Gujarati and Marwari languages in Sowcarpet and
Purasavakkam; there are a lot of Malayalam speakers in places like Anna Nagar so you can learn
Malayalam in those schools, similarly in places like Central Chennai such as Egmore and Teynampet
there are more Sindhi people and they can learn their language.

Looking at it like this, the people whose mother tongue is different have an increased chance of
learning their mother tongue if there is a significant number of those people living in the area. Tamils
living there can also learn the languages offered there and are more likely to get used to it. You can
also learn Sanskrit, Hindi or any other Bharatiya language if the opportunity exists.

We must keep in mind that the same benefits are going to accrue to Tamils living in the other states
also.

The two sides who, in the name of a language called Hindi, are opposing it on one hand and making
attempts to impose it on the other are making a huge mistake by politicizing it.

Important points that we need to think about: How are we going to teach students three languages?
How can we make them interesting to learn? Are we going to teach them only as languages or in
other ways through other subjects? We ought to explore such questions and find solutions to them
so that we can realize the purpose of the three-language policy, its benefits and its value and work
toward it yielding the maximum benefit to students.

Jai Hind!