New Delhi, Sep 14 (KNS): Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Monday addressed Hindi Diwas 2026 and the 6th All India Official Language Conference in Mumbai, where he stressed promotion of Hindi and other Indian languages as languages of governance, science and public communication.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Sunetra Pawar, Union Ministers of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai and Bandi Sanjay Kumar and Secretary, Department of Official Language Anshuli Arya were among those present.

Extending greetings on Hindi Diwas and Ganesh Chaturthi, Shah described the coincidence of both occasions falling on the same day as a “Manikanchan Yog”, saying Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, would pave the way for the development of Indian languages.

Recalling Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Shah said the public celebration of Ganesh Utsav in Maharashtra was started by Tilak in 1893. He said Tilak understood that awareness and cultural nationalism in India could be generated through its culture and history, and used festivals such as Ganesh Utsav and the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to generate a wave of patriotism.

Shah said Maharashtra has a rich tradition of multilingualism and recalled the contribution of saints of the Bhakti movement. He said Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj made “Swaraj, Swadharma and Swabhasha” fundamental elements of Swaraj and gave prominence to Marathi in administration.

During the programme, training programmes in Hindi word processing, Hindi typing and shorthand were inaugurated. Shah also conferred the Rajbhasha Kirti Awards and Rajbhasha Gaurav Awards and congratulated the recipients.

Several publications were also released, including Shiv Anadi Hain, Anant Hain, Bharatiya Gyan Tantra: Srot Aur Swaroop, Andheron Se Ujalon Tak, a special edition of Rajbhasha Bharati focused on the National Song Vande Mataram, and 150 Chapters of Vande Mataram.

Speaking about Vande Mataram, Shah said the song was not an ordinary composition but an effort by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay to awaken Indian consciousness during colonial rule. He said it became a declaration of freedom and laid the foundation of India's cultural nationalism.

Shah said Vande Mataram was later divided into parts and claimed that even after Independence, Parliament took nearly 80 years to accept it in its complete form. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the initiative to have the complete Vande Mataram sung at official functions with its full glory.

Referring to Maharashtra's multilingual culture, Shah said Marathi deserved respect and noted that Modi was the first prime minister to grant Marathi the status of a Classical Language. He said Konkani, Gujarati, Sindhi, Hindi, Kannada, Warli and several other languages had also developed and received recognition in Maharashtra.

Quoting Acharya Vinoba Bhave, Shah said Hindi had helped him carry the messages of Bhoodan and Gramdan to villages across the country. He said the Official Language had a connection with all Indian languages because they had been part of everyday speech and had interacted with each other for centuries.

Shah said although he comes from Gujarat, where Gujarati is spoken, he faced no difficulty working across the country after taking up responsibilities at the national level because he understood and spoke Hindi.

He also recalled the contribution of Veer Savarkar as a linguist and said the Department of Official Language had honoured him by incorporating words revised or coined by him into the online Hindi Shabd-Sindhu dictionary.Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp Channel

Shah said the makers of the Constitution deliberately adopted Hindi as the Official Language on September 14, 1949. He said the Department of Official Language had achieved several milestones under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, including initiatives under the National Education Policy.

He said the policy emphasises learning the mother tongue in primary education, asserting that a child's thinking, analysis and decision-making are strengthened through the mother tongue. He also stressed the importance of learning another Indian language to strengthen the idea of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”.

Shah said the government aims to enrich every Indian language and urged people to set aside political differences and focus on promoting Indian languages.

He said the All India Official Language Conference was, in 2019, decided to be taken beyond Delhi and organised in different states on a rotational basis. Monday's event marked the sixth edition of the conference.

Shah said four volumes of the Official Language Committee's reports had been submitted to the President since 2019, taking the total number of completed volumes to 13, with four completed during Modi's tenure.

He said Modi has delivered speeches in the Official Language and Indian languages during visits to major global platforms and other countries, adding that the government had also facilitated teaching of Hindi at universities in several countries.

Shah said more than five lakh Government of India employees had been trained, while the AI-based “Kanthasth 2.0” platform had been opened to foreigners and contained more than five crore sentences.

He said the LILA Rajbhasha and LILA Pravah platforms, based on artificial intelligence, had produced good results. The Hindi Shabd-Sindhu dictionary, which started with 51,000 words, has now expanded to eight lakh words, including more than 50,000 words from local languages.

Shah expressed confidence that the dictionary would become the world's largest dictionary by 2029. He said words from Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Odia and other Indian languages had been incorporated to make Hindi more flexible and adaptable.

He said the Department of Official Language had also developed “Bharti – Bahubhashi Anuvad Sarathi” and launched the “Indian Languages Section”.

Shah said the government wanted Indian languages to become languages of governance and science, enrich literature and connect different languages to create a vast collective linguistic resource. He noted that examinations such as JEE, NEET and undergraduate entrance examinations were now being conducted in 13 languages.

Appealing against attempts to create disputes between Indian languages, Shah said a child could truly understand India through the mother tongue and urged people to set aside political differences in favour of promoting Indian languages.

Referring to the “Panch Pran” outlined by Prime Minister Modi from the Red Fort, Shah said one of the pledges was to free India from the mindset of slavery.

Quoting Rabindranath Tagore, Shah said India's regional languages could be compared with the petals of a hundred-petalled lotus, with Hindi serving as the central jewel. He said there was no objection to having many languages, but the sentiment should remain Indian.

“India's languages may certainly be different notes, but the song is one, the song of patriotism is one and the song of our culture is one,” Shah said, adding that while there may be many dialects, India's voice must remain one.(KNS)