India’s Tower of Babel

The government recently amended a line in the National Education Policy 2019 requiring students not from Hindi-speaking states to include Hindi among the three languages—apart from English and their mother tongue—in their school curriculum. The policy also requires students in Hindi-speaking states to learn a regional language. In Tamil Nadu, particularly, the backlash against the ‘Hindi imposition’ was swift and fierce. While a lot of anger has been focused on Hindi, the wisdom behind the three-language formula has been questioned since 1968. While Hindi has been widely taught in non-Hindi-speaking states, Hindi-speaking states have not really reciprocated by teaching students a third, particularly southern, language. Having two languages in the curriculum will effectively acknowledge English as a pan-Indian ‘link’ language, but since Hindi is spoken more than any other language in India, it will likely become the default ‘third’ language, even if not a requirement. The question, then, is: are there sufficient teachers across India to offer a full gamut of third-language possibilities?