Union home minister Amit Shah remarked on Saturday that people should take pride in speaking in Hindi, as he addressed the Akhil Bharatiya Rajbhasha Sammelan on the second and final day of his visit to Varanasi in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Shah, who will leave for Azamgarh from Varanasi, also praised right wing ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar for what he described as the latter’s efforts towards promotion of the language.
“Time has come to take pride in speaking Hindi,” the Union home minister said, adding that parents should talk to children in their native tongue as ‘original thoughts come from our own language.’ The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader further said that the ‘inferiority complex’ regarding Hindi, which came up during the British rule, should be brought to an end.
He also said that the country ‘lagged behind’ because researches are conducted in foreign language. “However, the new National Education Policy lays emphasis on official language and regional language. Also, history of every state should be translated into official language,” Shah said.
Vinayak Damodar ‘Veer’ Savarkar, Shah said, is known in the country for his works, and respected for the promotion of the Hindi language.
The home minister’s visit to the politically significant Uttar Pradesh comes as the ruling BJP prepares for next year’s assembly elections in the state, likely to be held in February-March. In 2017, the party returned to power after several years, winning 312 of the state’s 403 assembly constituencies. It unseated the then ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), which bagged only 47 seats.