Six school teachers’ organisations in Maharashtra have strongly opposed the Mahayuti government’s policy to teach Hindi compulsorily in schools from the first standard onwards on Friday, even as the Maharashtra unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has threatened to begin a statewide agitation.

The development came after the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) headed by Raj Thackeray threatened an agitation against the move on Thursday.

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The Marathi Abhyas Kendra, Maharashtra State Secondary and Higher Secondary Principals’ Association, Amhi Shikshak Social Organisation, Maharashtra State Education Institutions Mahamandal, Maharashtra Progressive Teachers’ Association, as well as Maharashtra State Art Teachers Association have written to the Maharashtra school education minister requesting him to withdraw the decision.

Senior educationist and member of the state-level steering committee formed for quality and effective implementation, Ramesh Panse, has also supported this letter.

In their letter, the organisations said that Hindi should be made compulsory in Maharashtra only after the North Indian states start teaching Marathi or a Dravidian (South Indian) language. “We feel that North Indians need to learn Marathi more than Maharashtrians need to learn Hindi,” the letter stated.

The Marathi Ekikaran Samiti also strongly opposed this decision, saying Hindi is not the national language and its compulsion is linguistic imperialism. The compulsion of teaching a third language in schools is an injustice to students, it said.

Opposing the Mahayuti government’s directive to teach Hindi compulsorily in schools from first standard onwards, Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretary Dr Ajit Navale said, “Due to this decision of the government, young children will have to learn three languages from the first grade, which will put an additional burden of study on young students. This is very unscientific from the point of view of education and child psychology. The CPM demands that the state government immediately withdraw its decision to make Hindi compulsory from the first grade. If the government does not withdraw this compulsion, keeping in mind the sentiments of the people and justice, the CPM will launch a strong statewide protest against this move”.

“It seems that BJP took this decision keeping in mind the forthcoming Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections. The BJP’s plan is to keep the Marathi speakers in Mumbai fighting among themselves on the basis of caste and religion while on the other hand, it wishes to get votes of North Indians on the pretext of favouring Hindi language. The BJP is sacrificing Marathi language and Marathi culture for its selfish politics,” CPM Maharashtra state secretary Dr Ajit Navale said.

“The government’s decision is definitely wrong. It is not right to impose Hindi when the state language is Marathi. This is a step taken to deliberately reduce the importance of Marathi. This decision has been taken keeping the elections in mind. They know that they will not get votes from Marathi speakers and so they took this step to attract votes of Hindi-speaking migrants. Due to this, the population of Hindi-speaking migrants will also increase in Mumbai. The government must withdraw this decision or else, we will respond in our own MNS style,” MNS leader Santosh Dhuri said.

Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut has voiced his opposition against the Mahayuti government’s move to impose Hindi compulsorily. “Fadnavis wants to play language politics. Marathi is the state language here. First, make Marathi compulsory. Marathi language should be respected in employment, industry and commerce”.

Raut accused BJP leaders of neglecting Marathi language. Raut asked, “What action was taken against the BJP leader who said that the language of Ghatkopar (Mumbai suburb) is Gujarati? Marathi should be made compulsory in every school in Maharashtra and not just on paper. Implement it on the ground. Hindi is already loved and spoken across the country but it should not be imposed in the school curriculum. People in Vidarbha and Marathwada areas of Maharashtra also speak Hindi, but this does not mean that Hindi should be imposed all across Maharashtra. We can teach Hindi to people from UP and Bihar. Our Hindi is not lesser than anybody else’s,” Raut said.

Maharashtra Congress Legislative Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar said that if a third language like Hindi has to be taught from first grade, then it should be optional. He said that making Hindi compulsory is a form of coercion by the central government upon the states, which is against the basic principles of federalism.

“While giving priority to language during the formation of the Union, the mother tongue of states was accepted. The mother tongue of Maharashtra is Marathi. Marathi and English are used in education as well as administration. In such a situation, forcibly imposing Hindi as a third language is an injustice to Marathi and an attack on the identity of Marathi speakers. Some states have opposed such policies and they are being threatened. This is a matter of growing concern. This compulsion should be withdrawn immediately to protect Marathi identity and linguistic rights,” Wadettiwar said.