Since gaining independence, India has faced debates over making Hindi the official language, with calls to replace English as the language of livelihood. Despite being the language of the masses, Hindi has often been looked down upon by the elite, leading to challenges within its own nation. A significant issue was its exclusion as the medium of instruction, particularly in higher education. However, on January 26, 1965, the nation pledged to conduct as much government business as possible in Hindi and to support its promotion. Following Hindi's designation as the official language, the 'Remove English' movement emerged in Northern India, spearheaded by socialist leader Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia.
This movement was to end the compulsion of English from the curriculum, which does not seem appropriate in the current context because the new young generation of India is making its mark in the whole world on the basis of its knowledge of English, especially in the field of computer software, but this does not mean that we cannot acquire this knowledge in Hindi. Because according to computer scholars, Sanskrit is the most scientific language of this subject. Hindi is a language derived from Sanskrit. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was considered a great scholar of English language but he also accepted that Sanskrit is such a treasure of India which is full of knowledge. Today, Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah is drawing the attention of the whole country towards this and is saying that on the basis of knowledge of Sanskrit, we can make Hindi the language of science as well as the language of judiciary and police. Shri Shah is the only minister in the Modi government who keeps telling the importance of Hindi from time to time and keeps saying that only by making this language the language of livelihood, we can do the welfare of the people of India and make them experts in every field. Along with this, Shri Shah also keeps saying continuously that Hindi has no enmity or conflict with other Indian languages and all these languages can develop themselves with the spirit of co-existence.
In fact, regional languages in India have never faced any threat from Hindi. We have solid historical evidence of this. In independent India, only six months after independence, in January 1948, a high level committee was formed to consider the medium of education. This committee was formed by the Central Education Advisory Committee, in which Vice Chancellors and education experts of some universities were also included. When this committee submitted its report in September 1948, it was accepted. The committee said in its report that the universities and the provincial governments should reduce the English medium in university level education and give preference to Hindi and other regional languages in its place. These languages should be made the medium of examination. But this work should be done gradually in a systematic manner.
In this way, instead of giving place to any universal language or national language, English was given to Hindi and other regional languages. Till that time, only the question of national language was raised and since the time of freedom movement, it was said that after getting independence, Hindi will become the national language of India, in fact Mahatma Gandhi used to call it Hindustani Bhasha which also included colloquial Urdu words, but in independent India, the controversy of Hindi and Hindustani also went on and the question of national language remained incomplete which is still going on. This committee had also said in its report that if a student chooses Hindi as a subject at the graduation level, then it can be kept as an optional subject, but passing or not passing in it will not have any effect on the student's overall result. Exactly the same option was kept about English at the high school and intermediate level in states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh of North India in the late 60s.
This option came out after the English Hatao movement. But after some time this option was discontinued because by doing so the English knowledge of the new generation of India was getting weakened which was not considered appropriate for the level of education in any form. In the present times, Shri Shah is also saying only this that the use of Hindi should be promoted from higher education to administrative work so that it can become the language of livelihood. In any country, only that language can progress which is directly related to livelihood. Since 2014, when the Modi government has come to power in the country, the use of Hindi in administration is being given priority. We can see this effect from the Parliament to the police sector. Due to this, the common people of India are becoming powerful because language is also a means of making the common people powerful in any democracy. Dr. Lohia had started his English Hatao movement keeping this goal in mind but later this movement also became violent and in response to this, anti-Hindi movement started in South India. The only way to make India powerful can be what Mr Shah is saying, that Hindi and all regional languages should develop equally and they should contribute to the development of the common people in a spirit of co-existence.