We commend the recent decision of the CBSE to make instruction in the local language, mostly the mother tongue, mandatory at the primary level. The board has directed all affiliated schools to begin mapping students’ mother tongues “at the earliest" and realign instructional materials accordingly before the end of the summer break.

The issue of medium of instruction in education continues to seize the imagination of students, teachers, parents, and educationists. It is a matter fraught with political connotations. The recurrent bouts of Hindi hatred that grip parts of the country from time to time are stark reminders that the country remains ill at ease on the issue of language. Changing economic realities have only morphed the issue over time, instead of eradicating it.

The National Educational Policy (NEP) 2020 identifies issues and analyses various schemes that have been operating so far. Rather vaguely, it says that “the three-language formula will continue to be implemented while keeping in mind the constitutional provisions, aspirations of the people, regions, and the Union, and the need to promote multilingualism as well as promote national unity". In this laundry list of irreconcilables, one wonders what purpose did this sentence serve, if any. Any policy document, including the NEP, places a burden of intellectual and methodological clarity on the authors, for the government is expected to heed to their counsel. If the government is unable to coherently respond to the issue at hand, a large part of the blame lies on those passing off avoidance as advice.

India does not have a national language and rightly so. A polyglot country like ours does not need one. A European-style nation-state requires a certain ethnic and linguistic homogeneity to function; a civilisational state like ours is bound together with shared practices, worldviews, and philosophical approaches to our place as individuals within the society and of our nation in the world, instead of just language. Telugu signboards in Ayodhya and Shri Venkateshwara being worshipped in Uttarakhand are not contradictions of any kind — it’s simply how our civilisation works, and it is through a healthy appreciation of diversity that a sense of kinship and bonding is established.

Our Constitution recognises 22 official languages and some combination of these is used by the Union and state governments in their work. The constitutionally mandated dictum of installing Hindi as the sole official language for the Union is a dead........

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