Under attack from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and political parties in the State, the UGC on Thursday late evening decided to withdraw its controversial circular directing universities to teach Hindi as one of the primary languages in undergraduate courses.
The University Grants Commission will now issue a revised circular on the subject on Friday, UGC Chairman Ved Prakash said on Thursday, hours after Jayalalitha wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing “imposition” of Hindi and that the directive was “not binding” on the State.
“The last circular was issued inadvertently mentioning that Hindi be taught along with English as a primary language. UGC has decided to issue a circular on Friday saying that Hindi is not mandatory.It is the prerogative of the university concerned to decide how to teach, who to teach and what to teach,” Prakash said.The circular became public earlier this week and was attacked by political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the DMK, MDMK and PMK, which said they would resist all attempts to “impose” the language on Tamil Nadu.
Earlier in the day, Jayalalithaa said she had directed the universities in the State which received the UGC directives on September 16 to ignore it as it was not binding on universities in Tamil Nadu.She said the directive was an attempt by the Centre to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking States and this was against the Official languages Act 1963.
“The Act made it clear that Hindi should not be imposed on non-Hindi speaking States while the communication between the Centre and such States, classified as zone C should only be in English. Hence, the UGC circular is not applicable in Tamil Nadu,” said Jayalalithaa.
The Chief Minister pointed out that the UGC circular was a follow up to the decision taken by the National Hindi Council on July 28, 2011. The meeting was presided over by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Even as she criticised the then UPA Government’s move to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking States, Jayalalithaa lambasted DMK chief M Karunanidhi for maintaining silence over the issue at that time. “The DMK was part of the UPA Government at that time. It is only now that Karunanidhi questions the move to impose Hindi,” she said.