NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday extended greetings on Hindi Diwas and urged people to respect all Indian languages while working towards a self-reliant, confident and developed India.
Highlighting India’s linguistic diversity, Shah said languages have always united people — from the Himalayas to the southern coasts, deserts to forests, and village chaupals. “Our country is fundamentally a language-oriented nation. Indian languages have carried forward culture, history, traditions, science, and spirituality for generations,” he said.
Shah noted that India’s strength lies in the fact that every class and community has found expression through its languages. “Walk together, think together, and speak together has been the core mantra of our linguistic-cultural consciousness,” he said, citing examples from Bihu songs in the Northeast to Lohri in Punjab, Vidyapati’s verses in Bihar, Baul hymns in Bengal, and Bhupen Hazarika’s songs in Assam.
He stressed that languages not only kept culture vibrant but also became the voice of resistance during colonial rule, uniting the freedom struggle. Along with Hindi, poets and writers of every regional language inspired Indians with slogans like Vande Mataram and Jai Hind, which became symbols of national pride.
Recalling history, Shah said Hindi written in Devanagari was adopted as India’s official language on September 14, 1949. Article 351 of the Constitution entrusts the responsibility of promoting Hindi as an effective medium of India’s composite culture, he added.
He said under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, Indian languages have gained new pride globally, with Modi addressing forums like the UN, G20, and SCO in Hindi and other languages. In the “Amrit Kaal” of independence, languages also play a key role in the PM’s Panch Pran pledge to free the country from symbols of slavery.
Shah noted that Hindi has completed 76 years as the official language, while the Department of Official Language has completed 50 years of promoting its use. Since 2014, he said, the use of Hindi in government work has grown steadily. In 2024, the government set up the Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag to enable seamless translation among major Indian languages.
“Our goal is to make Hindi and other Indian languages the foundation of technology, science, justice, education, and administration,” he said, adding that in the era of AI, ML, and Digital India, Indian languages are being developed as future-ready tools to help India lead globally.
Quoting poet Vidyapati, Shah concluded: “Desil bayana sab jan mittha — one’s own language is the sweetest.”
