Vice President Venkaiah Naidu on the occasion of ‘Hindi Diwas’, on Friday said that English is a ‘disease’ which British left behind and termed Hindi as a symbol of “socio-political and linguistic unity” in India.
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“Yeh bimari jo angrezi wala chhod kar gaya, is bimari se hamein mukt karna chahiye: (this disease that English left behind, we should rid ourselves of this disease),” he said at an event organised on the occasion of ‘Hindi Divas’ at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.
“Have we been able to fulfil the wishes of the Constituent Assembly?” he asked this on saying, Hindi was chosen as one of the official language in the Constituent Assembly on September 14, 1949 but in the same assembly they also adopted English as one of the official language.
The vice-president pitched for the translation of literature in regional languages into Hindi. He said Hindi was the main language of the freedom fighters, and it was spoken and understood by most of the people in the country.
“It was the symbol of social, political, religious and linguistic unity of the country. Even today, these qualities make it acceptable among all other languages,” he said.
If we desire that our democracy continues to be progressive and becomes stronger, then we will have to use Hindi in the functioning of the Union government and the regional languages in the functioning of the state governments. Every state has immense contribution in Hindi getting the present status,” he said.
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When foreign dignitaries come to India, they speak in their own language, Naidu said, adding, “we should understand this spirit”.