Chennai: The committee’s report is “truly shocking”, a dangerous bid to belittle other classical Indian languages like Tamil in the guise of “teaching Sanskrit the easy way”, said DMK president M.K. Stalin, warning that DMK MPs will take up this issue in the very first session of the new Lok Sabha starting June 17.
Seeking to cool frayed tempers, the Tamil Nadu government said it would continue with the two-language formula.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar, who had constituted the panel when he was HRD minister in the previous Narendra Modi government, also clarified that the NEP committee has only prepared a draft report and no decision has been taken on implementing it.
However, the storm over the draft NEP showed no signs of weakening.
Recalling the anti-Hindi agitations beginning as early as 1937 in Tamil Nadu, Mr Stalin said since 1968 the state is following the two-language formula of learning only Tamil and English.
“The proposal is a threat to national integration and a move that will again put people’s linguistic sentiments in non-Hindi speaking states on the boil decades after the linguistic re-organisation of states,” he said, urging the BJP government to immediately reject the Kasturirangan panel report.
In Tiruchy, DMK Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchy Siva warned that the Centre’s move to make learning of Hindi compulsory in schools will meet with a severe backlash through another anti-Hindi stir in Tamil Nadu witnessed during 1964-65.
Congress leader P. Chidambaram in a series of tweets in Tamil said, “What is the meaning of three-language formula in schools? The meaning is they will make Hindi a compulsory subject.”
In another tweet, he said, “If Hindi language is a compulsory subject its import is imposition of Hindi.”
It was proposed also to co-locate Anganwadis and pre-schools in the same building so that the early dropout rate is reduced.
A National Education Commission would be established to oversee the educational visiony. The human resource development ministry would be renamed as ministry of education.
