Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah on Saturday addressed the Official Language Diamond Jubilee Celebrations to mark the 75 years of the acceptance of the Hindi language as the official language of the Union.

Mr Shah said 14th September is celebrated as Hindi Diwas as on this day in 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India accepted Hindi as the official language of the Union.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a post on X, greeted citizens on the occasion of Hindi Day. In a message, he said he was able to connect with so many people only because he knew Hindi. Hindi can be a link between all Indian languages, he said.

The Home Minister said Hindi is a friend of all Indian languages and they complement each other. Whether it is Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil or Bangla, every language strengthens Hindi and Hindi strengthens every language, the Home Minister said.

He said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a lot of work has been done to strengthen Hindi and local languages in the last 10 years. The Prime Minister has proudly addressed many international forums in Hindi and has put forward the importance of Hindi not only in the country but across the world.

The Home Minister addressed the 4th Akhil Bharatiya Rajbhasha Sammelan also and released the Diamond Jubilee Special Issue of the ‘Rajbhasha Bharati’ magazine.

He released a commemorative postage stamp and commemorative coin to mark the Diamond Jubilee. He presented the Rajbhasha Gaurav and Rajbhasha Kirti Awards and launched the Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhaag (Indian Languages Section).

Mr Shah said that a new tool ‘Kanthasth’ has been developed in the past 10 years. Work has been done to establish Hindi prominently in government work.

In the coming days, the Department of Official Language is also bringing a portal for translation from Hindi to all languages listed in the Eighth Schedule, through which “we will be able to translate any letter or speech into all languages in a very short time using Artificial Intelligence,” he said.

He said that the Indian Languages Section will become the centre for the protection of Indian languages. The Indian Languages Section will become a supplementary section of the Department of Official Language, “because the promotion of the official language cannot take place until we strengthen all our local languages and establish a dialogue between the official language and other Indian languages.”

The Home Minister said that those “who do not incorporate Swaraj, Swadharma and Swabhasha cannot free their future generations from slave mentality.”

Swabhasha is included in the definition of Swaraj itself. He said a country and people who cannot protect their languages, get cut off from their history, literature, culture, and their future generations continue living with a slave mentality.

He said that in the new education policy, the Prime Minister has stressed on imparting primary education in mother tongue. The easiest language for a child to process linguistic expression, thinking, understanding, reasoning, analysis and reaching a decision is through his/her mother tongue.

He said that for this reason Prime Minister Modi has laid great emphasis on imparting education in mother tongue. The Home Minister said that today is the day to strengthen all the languages of India and to make the official language the connecting language of the country through which “we can carry out the work of our country in our own languages.”

He said the Department of Official Language has done a lot of work towards making Hindi accommodative and acceptable. He said Hindi can never be polluted with assimilation of words from other Indian languages because Hindi is like mother Ganges and will always remain sacred. Many words are not in Hindi but in other local languages and “we have accepted them.”

Mr Shah said that the languages of India can only be strengthened by Hindi and vice versa. He said that today files and correspondences in the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Cooperation are being written in Hindi. Language is an expression, and expression is effective when it is in one’s own language, the Home Minister said.