Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said there is no competition between the official language Hindi and other Indian languages rather they are friends and complement each other.
Extending greetings on the occasion of Hindi Diwas, Shah also said that it was the spirit of the Constituent Assembly that all citizens of the country should communicate with each other in an Indian language, be it Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam or Gujarati.
"By strengthening Hindi, all these languages will also become flexible and prosperous and with the practice of integration, all languages will also take forward our culture, history, literature, grammar and the 'sanskar'," he said in a video message.
The home minister said the Hindi Diwas this year is very important for everyone because on September 14, 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India accepted Hindi as the official language of the Union.
He said it has been 75 years since then and the country is going to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the official language this year.
"Hindi has seen many ups and downs in 75 years but at this juncture, I can definitely say that Hindi has no competition with any local language. Hindi is a friend (sakhi) 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," he said.
Shah said if the Hindi movement is looked at carefully whether it is Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lala Lajpat Rai, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose or Acharya J B Kriplani, all of them hailed from non-Hindi speaking areas.
He said the committee formed under the leadership of N Gopalaswamy Ayyangar and K M Munshi had presented a report to the Constituent Assembly to recognise Hindi as the official language and give strength to Hindi and all our other languages.
"Both these leaders also hailed from non-Hindi speaking areas," he said.
The home minister said 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.
"Modi ji 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. Along with this, the Prime Minister has also increased the sense of pride towards the country's languages. In these 10 years, we have made a lot of efforts to strengthen several Indian languages," he said.
Shah said Prime Minister Modi has given a new life to Hindi and all Indian languages by giving an important place to imparting primary education in mother tongue in the new education policy.
Shah said the government has developed a tool 'Kanthasth' in these 10 years.
"We have submitted four reports of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee in the last 10 years and work has been done to establish Hindi prominently in government work," he said.
Shah said the department of official language is also bringing a portal for translation from Hindi to all the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule through which any letter or speech could be translated into all languages in a very short time using Artificial Intelligence.
The home minister said this will greatly strengthen Hindi and local languages.
"Our languages are among the richest languages of the world. Hindi connects us and all our languages," he said.
Shah appealed to all the countrymen to take a pledge on the Hindi Diwas to strengthen Hindi and local languages and support this work of the department of official language.