Hindi Language Not Being Imposed On Students: JKSCERT

Srinagar- Putting all speculations over imposition of Hindi language in the schools here to rest, the Jammu Kashmir State Council of Educational Research and Training (JKSCERT) on Wednesday said that the initiative is aimed to help students and will not be forced upon them.

An official from the JKSCERT said on Wednesday that the initiative was taken for the students who could at least “fill the forms” and learn the basics of the language in order to avoid any inconvenience while going for studies in other states of the country.

“Let me clarify, it is not compulsory and is not being offered as a separate subject. This is being done for the benefit of the students so that he/she may be able to read or write Hindi when they go to further studies in other states of the country,” the official, who is one of the members of the committee formed by the government, told Kashmir Observer.

He further said that the idea is to give the basic knowledge of Hindi to the students as an “Index” and “Bibliography”.

“When you are living in a country where Hindi is everywhere, our kids find it difficult to deal with any kind of situation. So, this is being done to make reading and writing Hindi easy for them,” he added.

In the first week of February, the JKSCERT constituted a committee to chart out a mechanism for teaching and learning of Hindi language in schools of Jammu and Kashmir.

The idea was to teach the Hindi language of classes 1st to 10th in all schools of the Union Territory and the Director, JKSCERT sought suggestions from the committee. The committee is likely to submit its recommendations by February-20-2023.

According to the order, the committee will be headed by Chairman of JKBOSE followed by seven members that include Director School Education Jammu, Director School Education Kashmir, Project Director Samagra Shiksha, JK, Director Academics of JKBOSE, Joint Director, SCERT Divisional Office Jammu, Joint Director SCERT Divisional Office Kashmir Member and Joint Director SCERT Central, JK.

In the order, a copy of which lies with Kashmir Observer, JKSCERT said that the committee shall be serviced by Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education (JKBOSE).

However the order drew sharp reactions from the regional political parties and other stakeholders in Kashmir saying that “imposition” of Hindi language amounts to “deepening the divide further”.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader M Y Tarigami while condemning the order said “Favouring Hindi at the cost of other languages amounts to an attack on national integration. The educational system and administrative institutions have accepted Urdu which is a modern Indian language as a link language since Maharaja Hari Singh declared it as the official link language in 1920,” he said in a statement.

The official said even though the valley doesn’t have many teachers who can teach Hindi, the government is keen to train teachers for teaching Hindi in the schools.

“The government feels that every teacher in Kashmir understands and can teach this level of Hindi in schools. They will also train the teachers for the same,” he added.

There are about 24000 government schools in J&K. Hindi is taught in most of the government and private schools in Jammu. However, the language was not taught in the Kashmir Valley, except Army schools.

Sources said there are over 1700 high schools in Jammu and Kashmir out of which 600 schools are teaching Hindi. They said in Kashmir over 100 percent of the students learn Urdu while in Jammu 40 percent of the students learn Urdu.

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