On the occasion of Hindi Diwas, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, on Sunday, September 15, that Hindi should not just be a medium of communication and official work but also the “language of technology, science, justice and police administration”.
Addressing the Fifth All India Official Language Conference, he said, “When all the work is done in Indian languages, it automatically promotes a connection with the masses.”
"With the establishment of the Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag (Indian Languages Section), the Department of Official Language has now become a complete department," he said.
He claimed that Hindi is not a competitor of other Indian languages but their “friend” and referred to the Sarthi software for translation, which integrates Hindi with other Indian languages by translating other languages to Hindi and vice versa.
"The biggest example of cohesion between Hindi and other languages is Gujarat. Gujarat's mother tongue is Gujarati, but the state has become a glowing example of co-existence and collective growth of Gujarati and Hindi," Amit Shah further said.
He added that several leaders from Gujarat, including Dayanand Saraswati, MK Gandhi and Sardar Patel, have accepted Hindi and promoted it.
"These leaders had the foresight to unite Indian languages and promote Hindi in all the states. This has gone a long way in increasing the pan-nation reach of students from the state," Amit Shah said.
He also claimed that Hindi has “linguistically united the nation” due to its role in promoting public communication and debate.
He further claimed that Sanskrit is the “source of Indian knowledge” and credited Hindi for taking this knowledge to every house and individual.
He also said that Hindi should be seen as a "friend" of Indian languages rather than a competitor. "Hindi is not a rival to other Indian languages but a companion language. Over the past five years, hosting this conference in different states instead of Delhi has given us a unique opportunity to strengthen communication between Hindi and regional languages," the Union Minister said in his keynote address.
Tracing the roots of Hindi's acceptance in Gujarat, Union Minister Shah noted: "From Dayanand Saraswati to Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Kanhaiyalal Munshi, and Umashankar Joshi, many visionaries from Gujarat adopted Hindi and promoted it. The coexistence of Gujarati and Hindi has given our children a wider reach at the national level."