After Jayalalithaa protests, UGC plans to retract Hindi circular

The University Grants Commission (UGC), which had earlier released circular directing universities to teach Hindi as one of the primary languages in undergraduate courses, has decided to retract the same, due to protests from the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and other political parties against the circular.

She said that on September 16, 2014, Anna University and Alagappa University in the state received the circular of teaching Hindi as a primary language along with English in undergraduate courses, besides following it in Law and Commerce streams also and now her party would protest against the same till the decision is not changed.

She said that the Kendriya Hindi Samiti's (KHS) decision on teaching Hindi as a primary language in universities will not be binding on universities in the state and that she has further informed the state chief secretary to convey to the universities under state government control to inform the UGC accordingly, as mentioned by a newspaper daily.

UGC Chairman Ved Prakash said that the commission will now issue a revised circular on the subject after Jayalalitha wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing her discontent with this step as she feels that it is an attempt to impose Hindi in the states where Non-Hindi speakers live in vast majority. He also said that the last circular was issued inadvertently mentioning that Hindi be taught along with English as a primary language and that UGC has decided to issue a circular saying that Hindi is not mandatory. It is the prerogative of the university concerned to decide how to teach, who to teach and what to teach.