India must follow the model of China and Israel and use 'our language' to conduct the administrative business, if Indians do not want to lose the concept of India, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat recently told a gathering of academics.
“We don’t want to impose our language on the entire world. But wherever we can, we should use it. In how many households do you hear Mataji Pitaji? We hear only mummy papa. If we continue on the same track, tomorrow we will lose our very identity. What people like Max Mueller could not do by corrupting the ancient literature of our culture, this (use of English) will ensure that. It could not be made possible then, but it can happen now if we get carried away,” Bhagwat said on Sunday.
He asserted that administrative business cannot be conducted in English since the majority of people in the country did not know the language. The RSS chief said this while addressing a session on reforms in competitive exams at Gyanotsav, a programme organised by Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, an RSS-affiliated body. The two-day event was held at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The programme was conducted as a brainstorming forum to deliberate on the draft National Education Policy.
The event was attended by human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, National Testing Agency chairman Vineet Joshi, and UGC chairman D.P. Singh, among others, over two days.
“Who says that administration services cannot be conducted without English? I say they cannot be conducted in English,' Bhagwat said. 'Because the majority of people in India still do not understand English that well, even those who have studied in English medium have only a working knowledge of it,” he said.
Bhagwat said the current administrative structure was erected by the British to suit their means and that it was run to “control the state” and not for the welfare of the people.
“They (the British) had their own system for administration, which was erected to control the state not for the welfare of the people. It worked for them then. But even after Independence, we were stuck with the same administrative structure,” he said.
In his entire speech, Bhagwat didn’t say whether he meant Hindi by “our own language” or if he was advocating for use of local language at the state administration level.
“To know to what extent we should use our language, we can look at China, look at how Israel uses Hebrew, how France uses French,” he said.
