Amaravati: Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan said this and requested citizens to consider Hindi their language of opportunity and unity at the golden jubilee celebrations of the Andhra Pradesh State Language Department at the GMC Balayogi Stadium in Hyderabad Gachibowli.
Taking his stand on addressing the audience, he emphasised the expanding role of Hindi in education, occupation, trade and commerce and the opposition to Hindi as being short-sighted and self-defeating. These comments of Kalyan go hand in hand with the motives of the state government in promoting Hindi as an optional language in schools, which he referred to as a chance of empowering the youth.
Kalyan enquired about the reluctance in adopting Hindi by making a parallel between the learning of foreign languages without difficulty. We have no qualms going to other countries and learning their language, but we are so shy of Hindi, he added. Why are we not open to the English and yet not comfortable with Hindi? He used the example of previously served President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (a native Tamilian) who adopted Hindi to show that cultural pride must not be equated to language dogmatism. Hindi, he said, is like your grandmother or, rather, like your mother tongue, and nobody can take away your identity by embracing it, as making you like the rest of us, he said to the audience.
When the Hindi was rejected, the deputy chief minister cautioned that this would curtail future prospects of the generations to come. People are supposed to stop politicising language and look instead at the development of the country; by turning away from Hindi, it is closing doors to education and employment, he was quoted. He emphasised the point that the state government introduced Hindi as a medium in the schools and said it is a foresighted decision that will make the students compete at the national and international level. There are also programmes that will be introduced in order to create a high standard of teaching Hindi by creating training programmes for Hindi teachers, Kalyan said.
Referring to the issue, he urged that the language should be perceived as a catalyst rather than an obstacle. Instead, he said, we should use language to bridge and not to break alliances, and turning Hindi into an unofficial national language became one of the ways of enhancing cultural and economic bonds between regions of the country. A 50-year anniversary of the State Language Department was heralded as an important step toward giving Hindi a place in Andhra Pradesh and, at the same time, reflecting its multilingualism.