SRINAGAR: Leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, claimed on Friday that forcing Hindi on Jammu and Kashmir would be an assault on national unity and widen the divide in the Union Territory.
He claimed that the BJP government’s arbitrary move to impose Hindi had only one goal: to widen the chasm in Jammu and Kashmir’s multilingual, multiethnic community.
Tarigami stated in a statement that the Jammu and Kashmir State Council of Educational Research and Training’s (JKSCERT) directive to teach Hindi in all schools for grades Ist through 10th contributes to further dividing society.
According to him, such suggestions undermine both the history of the liberation struggle and the constitutional guarantees of fostering diversity and unity.
Favoring Hindi over other languages would be an attack on national unity, he continued.
Since Maharaji Hari Singh designated Urdu as the official link language in 1920, the educational system and administrative institutions have acknowledged the modern Indian language as a link language, according to Tarigami.
Without being the regional tongue, “the Urdu language is understandable to 100% of our population,” he claimed.