Original multi-disciplinary literature in Hindi, improvising and simplifying the Hindi used and taught in educational institutions and its honest, unabashed use everywhere are the only ways that Hindi can be preserved and popularised, authorities of the language opined as they gathered to observe Hindi Diwas at SKIPA on Monday.
Organised by Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasa Department, the ceremony saw participation from scholars, educators, journalists and authors, who expressed their concern over Hindi losing ground among its speakers.
Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister Raghubar Das said, “With marketisation, English was taken to be the superior language. People started to relate the language to higher probability of getting a job. But it is all in the mentality which needs to be changed.”
Emphasis was on promoting technical literature spanning across topic like law, political science, medicine, and then some.
“Most of the students in my department had Hindi as a medium of communication during their earlier academic days, but the books we teach them from now are all in English. Thus, they are not benefitted from these books, no matter how acclaimed these books or their authors are. We need to translate certified publications into Hindi and simplifying the language used in technical books so that they can be easily understood by students from various linguistic backgrounds,” said renowned economist and Ranchi University faculty Ramesh Sharan.
“The standard of Hindi being taught and used for teaching in universities is mediocre at its best. We first have to improvise on these to gain any concrete development regarding Hindi,” he said.
RU’s Hindi Department’s head Mithilesh Kumar Singh said, “Usually Hindi literature is considered to the benchmark on which its growth is tested. Tremendous work has been done in this field, but informative publications in Hindi remained neglected. As a result, there was good literature to read, but no knowledge to gain. There is no relevant work related to most promising sectors in terms of jobs, like engineering and management.”
The perennial issue raised every Hindi Diwas, of using Hindi more in our day-to-day life, was raised again by the speakers. “Use of Hindi in administrative and judicial machinery needs to be ensured first. We have to include it sincerely in our daily practice before the rest of the world starts using it. Along with this, it should be seen that Jharkhand’s contributes in international Hindi Day celebrations,” said noted litterateur Ashok Priyadarshi.
He further added, “India has become a global business hub, courtesy to initiatives like Make in India, and such. But when others stick to their native languages when marketing their products, we opt for English. Only if we regulate our markets according to ourselves, will the foreign players will be interested in doing business with us.”
The regional languages were not left behind either. SKIPA Director General Sudhir Prasad said, “Along with Hindi, we also need to promote vernacular and regional languages of India. It has been observed that if students are taught in their mother-tongue, the dropout rates tend to decrease substantially.”
“I request that the politicians and bureaucrats of the state use languages which the public is comfortable with. In a year or two, the work in government offices will be done entirely in Hindi. About project estimate reports will be completely in Hindi, so that it can be understood by one and all,” CM said.