PPrime Minister Narendra Modi is Teflon-coated-not titanium-coated. Therefore, whatever the Bharatiya Janata Party does, it remains largely untouched by adverse election results. There may be a difference between what they say and what they do, but voters don’t notice it.
Check out the list of BJP candidates for the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections to be held next month. Creating discussion a. has candidature chaiwala and former newspaper vendor Sanjay Sood for Shimla Urban seat. Minister Suresh Bhardwaj, who won the seat for the last three consecutive terms, had to vacate the seat to make room for Sood. However, he is no ordinary tea seller. He is the treasurer of BJP for the state. The party refused tickets to one-fourth of its MLAs – an age-old tactic to manipulate voters, planning to punish them for non-performance.
Those in the fray include former Telecom Minister Sukh Ram’s son, outgoing Jal Shakti Minister Mahendra Singh’s son, former minister Narinder Bragta’s son, party MLA Pawan Nayar’s wife and turncoat. There is nothing new in this. BJP is fielding dynastic and tainted leaders and promoting them in the party and the government. And yet, it’s been fatal Opposition parties for being dynastic and corrupt.
This is PM Modi’s strength is nothing for BJP.
He steamed well the original ideological agenda of Ayodhya Ram Mandir and Article 370. They became the national agenda, to subjugate political opponents. They could only watch in awe, envy and helplessness as PM Modi lit the lamp at the grand Deepotsav celebrations in Ayodhya. It was the same when he had darshan and worshiped in Kedarnath and Badrinath temples with Himachali cap. They have no match for Hindutva or cultural nationalism.
Next on the list ‘National’ agenda
It is in this atmosphere of absolute dominance that the BJP is determined to implement its next ideological agenda – something that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP and its forerunner Jana Sangh have internalized to ‘strengthen India’. Agreed. ‘ – One nation, one language. “It is necessary to have a common language which becomes a symbol of India’s identity on the world stage. Today, if there is one language which has the capacity to bind the nation in unity, it is Hindi language,” Amit Shah said in 2019.
He was expressing the long standing view of the Sangh on this issue. And Shah did not stop here. On 16 October in Bhopal, he launched textbooks in Hindi on Anatomy, Medical Biochemistry and Medical Physiology for MBBS students. While the BJP high command is contemplating promoting a new face in Madhya Pradesh, CM Shivraj Chouhan has launched an ambitious project to impart MBBS education in Hindi. There has been a debate in the medical world regarding this.
Here are some exchanges in the WhatsApp group involving senior doctors that were shared with me:
Pro-Hindi: “I don’t think you learn Ukrainian, Hungarian, Russian and Honolulu to study medicine, but as soon as it comes to the Indian language, the stomach hurts.”
“People who are not so well versed in English get more equal opportunity.”
“To take pride in our culture and remove the shackles of colonialism.”
Anti Hindi: “What’s the problem with going with a global language? need to move with the world to become Vishwa Guru,
“Tilli should have been written like this for the promotion of Hindi” till I am and as a kidney kidneyAnd no spleen and kidney in Devanagari…how it will promote Hindi….needs more discussion on this…otherwise, there will be shoddy education and substandard doctors. ,
“Think that if Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra and Odisha start MBBS in their own languages, it will start a linguistic cold war that will harm patients, students and medical science as a whole.”
“Medical research is still only available in English because there is actual research happening abroad … we rediscover their research.”
“Indian doctors are a huge hit abroad because we mix them in science and knowledge of English but work harder than them…. no one is thinking of harm to the country while trying to take credit of Hindi “
“Translating the entire syllabus is a huge task and even those who speak Hindi well will find it difficult to understand Hindi words related to science.”
“Research from India, which, as such, takes a back seat, will be difficult to get outside recognition. At a time when researchers try to reshape English vocabulary in such a way that the same word is being used for the same problem everywhere, how will a new language be on the world map? ,
More questions are arising outside WhatsApp groups. How will Hindi-medium MBBS doctors update themselves with new research assignments coming every day globally? It is an ever-evolving science, and every doctor – even the one in Bhopal – needs to stay up-to-date with global medical research. And what will a Hindi medium MBBS student do if they get an opportunity to pursue further studies in (non-Hindi) institutions in India or abroad? The joke in the medical fraternity is that this is the surest way to stop brain drain.
Many engineers and other professionals may also have similar questions. The committee headed by Amit Shah of Parliament on Official Language has recommended Hindi as a compulsory medium of instruction in institutions ranging from kendriya Vidyalaya IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and all technical and non-technical institutions.
The BJP’s rivals in South India have speculated on this. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has passed an assembly resolution against Hindi ‘imposition’, while his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan has written a letter to PM Modi. For a party with big ambitions of expansion in South India, the emphasis on Hindi has obvious risks. But apparently Amit Shah will have a better idea than any of us.
read also, Hindi medium in colleges, government, recruitment exams and UN – what Shah-led language panel wants
Is India ready for this?
Apart from politics, both sides have their own arguments in the Hindi debate. As one of the doctors said: If Chinese, Japanese, German and Russian can study medical and technical education in their own language, why can’t Indians? every way. But as other doctors have pointed out, are we ready for this? Are we putting the cart before the horse? First of all, does Amit Shah have an answer to what ‘anti-Hindi’ doctors say?
The question is not whether it is necessary to have a language to unite India or not. The question is whether the country is ready for it.
Barring political opponents, the BJP itself seems to be divided on this. While former Tripura CM Biplab Deb supported Shah’s ‘one nation, one language’ formula, his successor and current CM Manik Saha has a different view. “Our honorable Prime Minister always says that without knowledge one cannot move ahead in the future. So you should get proper education. And without English it is very difficult to compete with other students from within the country as well as abroad. English is very important for us,” Saha, a dental surgeon-turned-politician, said last week. He was inaugurating the first English medium degree college in Tripura. English and Bengali are compulsory subjects there. Yogi Adityanath’s government in Uttar Pradesh last year! converted About 15,000 primary and upper primary schools were converted into English medium schools.
Weeks after taking over as CM in 2017, Yogi had a news door Speaking about his intention to start teaching English from nursery: “Traditional and modern should be mixed…. We should also have an education system that promotes nationalism but which is modern.”
The Assam cabinet has recently decided to teach Mathematics and Science in English from class III onwards. Defending the decision, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said that there is a need to prepare more doctors and engineers from poor families. “The affluent class should not ask the students from poor families to study in the local medium and send their children to the English medium schools,” The Times of India Cited Him.
Sarma is present. Amit Shah may want to conduct a survey of what his ministerial colleagues say about Hindi as a major medium of instruction. as theprint informed of In 2020, at least a dozen of Modi’s ministers sent their children to Oxford, Harvard and other foreign universities.
Shah would also like to investigate which schools his fellow colleagues send their children and grandchildren to – English or Hindi medium. He’ll be surprised. Lohiati was another anti-English brigade. See where both daughters of Akhilesh Yadav are studying. He has sent them to London.
PM Modi wants to take the country out of ‘slave mentality’ regarding the English language. For once, many of his chief ministers and ministers do not seem to agree with this.
Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Likes)