It is food that brings people together. Why not learn Punjabi also? I got relatives that speak Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telegu. There are so many beautiful languages and cultures within India. One hasn't lived till they experienced it all!
The concern about killing off languages in a generation or two is very real in India. When enough MP's from non-Hindi northern states of India can be convinced to amend the Constitution of India, the "official" can be modified to "national". Amendment of the Constitution of India - Wikipedia Hindi as a third language, and in common use in Metro cities in non-Hindi states, inter-state migrations of populations (especially in the labour class) will all erode the strength of the local language. State governments have to offer incentives for the students to study higher literature in their own languages in school. It is more difficult to score marks in one's native language, than in a foreign language (like French or Hindi): the grading policy has to normalize the degree of difficulty. Politicos already see local language support in schools as the seeds they put down in order to be able to stoke the nativist sentiments for electoral advantage. However, this support has to happen without inflicting economic disadvantage on the voting bloc.
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bengal have engaged most with #StopHindiImposition. Delhi is ranked just below TN in the frequency of invoking the hashtag !! The following video explains. 10 Graphics Reveal the Online Resistance to Hindi Imposition Row Singapore has bilingual education [English medium, with Mother-tongue as a subject] with Mandarin(72% of population), Malay(13%) and Tamil (9%). The other significant languages in the country (cantonese, hokkien, punjabi, thai, vietnamese, bengali) are not "official". Very often one might see a punjabi child in a Mandarin class, rather than in a Tamil class. The home language for many young parents in Singapore is English -- spoken with an accent and cadence that might even sound like their mother tongue, but it is English. This is happening to metro-dwelling Indian parents with college degrees and professional white collar jobs. They speak English at home to their children who go to English medium schools. I thought of the Singapore situation of non-Tamil Indians, as well as the Indians resident in the Delhi area. These populations tend to be Cosmopolitan and understand the injustice of imposing a foreign language on a culture. That explains the hashtag-StopHindiImposition from Delhi.
PM speaks in English when he comes to Tamil Nadu and he speaks in Hindi in the all state Chief Minister meeting ? This is what is called pushing Hindi
I am born and brought up in Tamil Nadu and am a great patron of Tamil as a language..I am an active participant of a group which promotes Tamil language and do my bit However I feel handicapped not knowing Hindi. Having settled outside Tamil Nadu, personally have struggled enough, (still struggling) not knowing Hindi. I repent not learning Hindi in my childhood. Still no one is stopping me to learn Hindi. I am learning along with my kids, but definitely the pace is slower. Have picked up regional language as well.Am glad am putting efforts to learn more language. Knowing many languages is an asset..Learning another language, doesn't make mother tongue inferior..Lets not associate things too emotionally and learn languages for our own benefit
We are discussing about a language being forced on people, if you WANT to learn a new language you can learn it no one is going to stop it, go and tell kids from the underdeveloped states about how useful it is to learn a third language, TN people have progressed with two language system for decades.