After the cartoons on Ambedkar and the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu, Class 8 and Class 10 books under the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus have come under the scanner.
PMK Founder Dr Ramadoss on Sunday said that Class 8 and Class 10 books have mentioned Hindi as the national language and such a reference should be removed.
He pointed out that in the Class 10 Social Science book in the chapter ‘Unity in Diversity’, Hindi has been mentioned as the national language of India.
“In India about 845 spoken languages are there. Out of these 22 are recognised as official languages by our government.
Hindi in Devanagari script has been chosen as the national language of India. English is being used as the concurrent language.” The above lines have appeared in the textbook.
“In Class 8 Social Science book, page 321, again Hindi has been mentioned as the national language. This is a big blunder.
People speak many languages in India and no language has been declared as the national language,” Mr Ramadoss said.
Article 343(1) of the Constitution provides that Hindi in Devanagari script shall be the official language of the Union and Gujarat high court in 2010 observed that in India a majority of people have accepted Hindi as the national language and many speak Hindi, but it’s not officially the national language, he added.