Hindi a democratic, uniting language: Amit Shah

New Delhi, September 14

The government on Thursday hailed the power of Hindi in uniting the country through difficult times and said it was due to the remarkable role played by the language in the freedom movement that architects of the Constitution accepted it as the official language on September 14, 1949.

Diplomats mark diwas with dohas, dialogues

• Australian diplomats on Thursday marked the Hindi Diwas in style by reciting their favourite proverbs, such as ‘kaal kare so aaj kar’, ‘saanch ko aanch kahaan’, ‘koshish karne waalon ki kabhi haar nahi hoti’ and ‘jaisa des waisa bhes’
• Israeli diplomats also posted a video delivering dialogues from top Hindi films, such as “Ek chutki sindoor ki keemat tum kya jaano” and “Babu mushai zindagi lambi nahi badi honi chahiye”

“I am confident that Hindi language will continue to bind the country in the thread of unity and solidarity,” PM Narendra Modi said today on the occasion of Hindi Diwas, while Union Home Minister Amit Shah described Hindi as a democratic language that has united the nation.

“India has been a country of diverse languages, and Hindi unites the diversity of languages in the world’s largest democracy. Hindi has been a democratic language, it has honoured different Indian languages and dialects as well as many global languages and adopted their vocabularies, sentences and grammar rules,” Shah said.

DMK youth wing chief Udhayanidhi Stalin hit back on the comments amid raging culture wars, including on Sanatan Dharma, saying, “Hindi is spoken only in four or five states in the country and hence Shah’s statement is totally absurd. He should stop oppressing non-Hindi languages by calling them just regional languages.”