Come September 14, Hindi Diwas is organised in all Central Government offices. This mundane routine continues year after year with programmes and seminars being arranged, essays and poems written in Hindi and prizes being distributed to the winners. Once the routine is over, everyone is back to their happy selves and forget Hindi. Today, English is the defacto national language in India. Right from our Prime Minister to the lower level, people give high importance to English. Then why bluff about Hindi being the national language of India? Why can't we shed over our addiction to English as a medium for communication? In this process, our usage of Hindi gets diluted. Why, even regarding other vernacular languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali etc. the story is the same. Parents refuse to send their children to vernacular medium schools and insist on admissions to English medium schools.
They feel it prestigious for their children to study in convent schools. We, as a nation are losing our identity by giving importance to English language. We still gloat in pride when our children become Green card holders and settle in America. And then, not all children become Green card holders. In fact they become confused with this foreign language. Is this a positive development? Look at other developed countries like China, Japan, Germany and other countries. No one speaks English over there. Of course, they use English as an international language but the medium of instruction in China is always Chinese and in Germany, they use German language. Then why such dependence over English Language only in India? Why do we still think, we will achieve progress only if we are educated in English? When will this attitude of our countrymen go? There are no answers to these questions. But one thing is certain, unless we recognise our respective mother tongues and respect our Rashtra Bhaasha, we will not achieve true progress. Our nation will lose its character and identity.In fact, in future, Hindi Divas will be remembered as the death anniversary of our national language.