New Delhi: Help is at hand for all those Hindi-challenged babus in the Narendra Modi government fearful of not quite making the cut in the push for the national language to be made lingua-franca in official communication. After the Union home ministry asked its bureaucrats to use Hindi for social media communication last year, the not-so-subtle message has gone out that all file notings be made only in Hindi in future. For those who might struggle, the home ministry has done the hard work and dumbed things down by putting together a ready reckoner of sorts- a quick reference guide of Hindi translations of stock English bureaucratese- for everything from ‘please discuss to ‘urgent attention must be given please.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the way as the biggest proponent of Hindi, preferring to make his speeches in boththe United States and Japan, in the national language of India, his government had suggested within weeks of taking oath that Hindi be used as much as possible in official documents. So, to inculcate the habit of using Hindi among its bureaucrats, a two-page note has been circulated among senior staff by the initiative of the home ministry.
The note- reportedly titled ‘Comments made by senior officials in their day-to-day working, seeks to coax the switch from English to Hindi for file notings. There are 41 phrases in the note, all of them Hindi versions of standard babu English. Examples include as proposed, issue today, it is a matter of regret that, please discuss, question does not arise and urgent attention must be given please. The final decision on the list was reportedly taken during a meeting chaired by Home Secretary LA Goyal last Friday, 27 Feb.
The governments move to promote Hindi hasnt found too many willing takers however. CPM leader Brinda Karat had opposed any move to impose Hindi, while in the Odisha Assembly a member’s attempt to ask a question in Hindi was disallowed by the chair. In non-Hindi speaking states also there was quite a backlash to the previous initiative to encourage the use of Hindi in social media communication. Leaders from the South, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalaithaa, had then severely critiqued the ministry, which said the directive applied only to bureaucrats working in Hindi-speaking states. Karunanidhi has taken exception to what he termed efforts to promote Hindi in the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) saying it will push other central entities to follow suit. The home ministry’s secretary (official languages) had written to Financial Services Secretary Hasmukh Adhia last November and proposed that nationalised banks should use Hindi, along with English, for ATM print receipts, Internet bank portals, emails and text messages sent to customers.
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