ALMOST FIVE years ago, a notification in Hindi was published in English and Gujarati dailies in Gujarat to acquire additional land for 8D Highway to speed up state’s efforts for road expansion. The local farmers of Junagarh stated that the Hindi language was not known to them since Guajarati is the only language understood by them.

They further claimed that Gujarati is the only language which is taught to their children from the Kindergarten standard while Hindi remains an unknown language to them.

These local farmers took up the Hindi language issue with the Local and Gujarat High Court, objecting to the unwanted/ undesired issuance of Hindi notification in the local Guajarati dailies.

The local Judiciary in their latest verdict have declared that Hindi language is not familiar to the locals and thus it seems a foreign language to them. Indeed a very strange verdict of the judiciary seems politically motivated.

Imagine the verdict is coming from Narendra Modi’s state, a prominent BJP leader who is also dreaming to be next Prime Minister of India. If this can happen in Gujarat, imagine what will be the position in the southern states of our Country.

On one side we have been treating Hindi as one of our official languages in the United Nations while our own citizens are considering it a foreign language.

Hindi not their mother language is well understood but considering it a foreign Language is very shocking, unreasonable and unconstitutional too.