The University Grants Commission has nudged all the 900-odd universities in India to teach Hindi compulsorily to undergraduate students, the Centre admitted in Parliament on Thursday.

The commission’s functions, under the UGC Act, are to take steps to standardise the quality of higher education and advise the universities on their academic affairs.

Commission sources said the higher education regulator had written to the universities last October saying it had received a letter from BJP politician Vijay Kumar Malhotra asking it to make Hindi a compulsory subject for university and college students.

They said the human resource development ministry had forwarded the letter to the commission.

In the Lok Sabha on Thursday, CPM member K.K. Ragesh asked HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” whether the regulator was pushing for Hindi to be taught to every undergraduate student.

“The UGC has informed that a reference was made to universities to seek their opinion/suggestions regarding the teaching of Hindi. However, the universities are autonomous bodies and any decision to teach any particular subject is under their control,” Nishank said.

DMK member Ravikumar told this newspaper that the “reference” by the commission was “unwarranted”.

“Any attempt to make Hindi a compulsory subject will create huge unrest in the non-Hindi-speaking states,” he said. “Imposing Hindi in the age of Google translations is unnecessary and meaningless. The Union government should refrain from this kind of mischief.”

Delhi University executive council member Rajesh Jha said the commission’s move reflected its efforts at homogenising and centralising higher education. “The universities are supposed to decide their syllabuses. Over the last five years, the commission has been preparing a common syllabus under the choice-based credit system,” he said.

“Now it is asking all the universities to teach Hindi. This reflects its preference for centralisation and uniformity in higher education, a tendency that will affect the pursuit of excellence.”

Jha stressed that universities had the academic freedom to design their courses in any manner they thought fit. He said the regulator ought to “encourage diversity, the spirit of questioning and critical thinking in academic institutions”.

Jha added that Delhi University gave its undergraduate students the choice to study the regional languages, but a lack of teachers for these languages forced them to study Hindi. Most universities compel undergraduate students to study one or two languages.

Fears of the “imposition of Hindi” had recently been raised after the draft national education policy suggested that schoolchildren in every state be taught English, Hindi and another modern Indian language.

Following furious objections, principally from Tamil Nadu, the government had to clarify there would be no imposition of any language on any state.

The department of higher education, which functions under Nishank's ministry, had last month issued an order asking all its sections to use Hindi in all their files and note sheets that were to be sent to the minister.