NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah on Thursday said the govt was committed to ensure that its diverse languages become a powerful medium to connect people, unlike the past few decades when efforts, though unsuccessful, were focused on making language a tool to break the country.Addressing the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the department of official language here, Shah insisted that governance must be conducted in local languages for the country to move forward with self-respect, based on its culture. Mentioning the resolve to break free from the slavery mindset — one of the ‘Panch Pran’ given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — Shah said it can only be fulfilled only if a person takes pride in his own language and develops an ability to express, think, analyse and make decisions in that language.“Indian languages should be used as much as possible in government work, not only in the Central government but also in the state governments. For this, we will also help the state governments, encourage them and try to convince them,” he said.Stating that “our roots, traditions, history, identity and cultural way of life cannot progress if disconnected from language,” the home minister said efforts to promote and preserve all Indian languages, including Hindi, would be made in the coming days.“Hindi is a friend of all languages and together, Hindi and other Indian languages enhance our self-pride,” he said while adding that there should not be any opposition to foreign language either.“No state can ever become great by neglecting its mother tongue and the Modi govt has made many efforts to honour and dignify its languages,” he said while mentioning the recognition of Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali as classical languages.Shah said Indian languages are getting an unprecedented boost in the field of technology, education and administration and asked all state governments to take the initiative to impart medical and engineering education in local language.“New Education Policy-2020 lays emphasis on teaching mother-tongue and local language up to Class 5 and 8. 95% of the applicants for post of constable in Central armed police forces are now taking the examination in their mother tongue,” he shared.Shah said that the modi govt, over the past 11 years, have launched events like kashi-tamil sangamam, kashi-laugu sangamam, saurashtra-tamil sangamam, shashwat mithila maotsav and bhasha sangam under the ‘ Bharat, Shreshta Bharat ‘Program. He said that as part of bhasha sangam, a program is being run in every school to teach students 100 commonly used sentences in the 22 languages reconstituted by the constitution. He hailed the ‘Hindi Shabdsindhu’ initiative by the department of official language, saying that it would make the official language more accepted, flexible and comprehensive by enriching it with commonly spoken works, regardless of their origin.Also appreciating the establishment of Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag – which enables translation of official files from Hindi to other official languages and vice versa — the home minister said it would assist in seamless coordination and communication between the Centre and states.
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