Imphal: Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) on Sunday raised a strong objection to the Centre’s move to introduce Hindi as compulsory upto Class-X in Northeast states of the country.
Union Home minister Amit Shah, in a statement at the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, had reportedly pitched to make Hindi compulsory in schools up to Class X in the eight Northeast states.
Addressing a press conference, MPCC president, K Meghachandra termed the move of the BJP-led government at the Centre as a “cultural terrorism”.
The Congress leader alleged that if the Centre goes ahead with its move to use Hindi as an alternative to English and force people to learn the language in the region (NE states), it will give a great impact to the language, culture and religions of smaller communities living in the Northeast states. “The move is a part of BJP’s agenda to eliminate smaller communities”, he also alleged. “The move will make meaningless the inclusion of Manipuri language in the 8th Schedule of Indian Constitution. There will be no need for pressing the Central government for inclusion of the Meitei Mayek script in the currency notes of the country if this is the case,” he added.
The MPCC chief then stated the BJP government’s move will also be a big challenge to the indigenous religions of the Meitei and other communities living in the region. At the same time, Meghachandra stated that the move of the Central government is at a time when efforts are on to replace the Bengali scripts used in Manipuri language by the indigenous Meitei scripts.
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