North-East students are next in line with worries over the newly-formed four-year graduation course at the Delhi University. The students are protesting the introduction of ‘Hindi or Modern Indian languages’ as a compulsary subject even for these minority communities who are mostly alien to these languages.
They allege that the syllabus has failed to take into account their interests and is discriminatory.“We have been clearly told that the committee set-up by the university for structuring syllabus for this new course has made it compulsary for all to opt for either for Hindi or 22 other languages. There are 1,618 languages in India and in North-East alone, we have 200 communities - each with their own language. Some students have studied English only till eighth standard. Only Naga and Manipuri are the recognised languages of this community which too are not taught much due to the lack of infrastructure. There are students from South-India who have studied Hindi only at a basic school level. In Tamil Naidu, there are very few schools which teach Hindi as a main language subject,” said Alok Kumar, member of the North-East Forum for International Solidarity (NEFIS).
Chinglel Khumukcham, a student from Manipur, alleged that it was clear discrimination on the part of university authorities to not recognise their interests and force them to choose only Hindi. “We are forced to leave our place as it lacks in offering quality education but here again are forced to learn something that is alien to us. There are around 60 colleges in DU and each has about 200 students from the North-East,” he said.
Calling the demands of the minority students legitimate, Saikat Ghosh, professor of English at Khalsa College said these students, including those from South Indian, cannot be expected to study Hindi. “Education is a part of the concurrent list and all States have their own languages in their syllabus for primary and middle school education. Rarely anyone studies Hindi in some States till Class 10. This has never happened in DU before and the senior officials are bulldozing reforms. On top of everything, there is no infrastructure. In Miranda House, faculty is available for only Hindi, Pubjabi and Bangla and at Khalsa College only Hindi and Punjabi,” Ghosh said.