Venkaiah Naidu asks Rajya Sabha MPs to speak in Hindi

Venkaiah Naidu

Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday urged the upper House members to preferably speak in Hindi "without fearing for grammatical mistakes".

The Chairman's observation came as he presided over a meeting of Rajya Sabha's Hindi Committee that met on Tuesday after a gap of three-and-a-half years. Naidu also made mandatory two meetings every year of the committee, meant to promote use of Hindi in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat.

Naidu urged the members of Rajya Sabha hailing from non-Hindi speaking areas to speak in Hindi if they chose to do so without the fear of grammatical mistakes. He underscored the need to be proficient in their mother tongue first as it would enable learning other languages easily.

Referring to his own experience, Naidu recalled that he did not know Hindi when he first came to Delhi but soon picked up the language by speaking without any hesitation. "King can do no wrong. You are Members of Parliament and can speak freely without the fear of committing mistakes," Naidu is said to have told the MPs.

He said the best way of propagating Hindi is encouraging its use instead of forcing others to adopt it. He further said knowing different languages is advantageous and urged north Indians to learn any south Indian language of their choice as it would promote national unity and integration.

The Chairman also called for simple translation of business related matters into Hindi so that more and more MPs are encouraged to use it. He urged the need for adopting widely popular words from other languages in Hindi for its easy acceptance. He informed the committee that efforts are being made to enable Members to speak in the House in any Indian language of their choice.

During the discussion, non-Hindi speaking members called for permitting them to make grammatical corrections in their printed Hindi speeches so that correct language goes on record. They also made various suggestions including simple translation, filling up posts required for increased use of Hindi etc.

Those present at the meeting included Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien, members of the committee Satyanarayan Jatiya, Harivansh, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, K. Keshav Rao, Prabhat Jha, Ravi Prakash Verma, Prasanna Acharya and Jharna Das Baidya. The last meeting of the Hindi Salahkar Samiti of Rajya Sabha was held in December 2014.

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