Chennai: TNCC president B Manickam Tagore on Saturdaycondemned the Union govt for its mandatory three-language policy for CBSEschools, calling it a “cruel attack” on students and parents.In a statement, Tagore alleged that the three-languagepolicy amounted to indirect imposition of Hindi in non-Hindi-speaking states.“The mandatory three-language policy is a cruel attack on students and parents.It threatens India’s unity and must be withdrawn,” Tagore said. He added thatthe Centre made the three-language policy mandatory for class VI in CBSEschools from the current academic year under the National Education Policy. Hesaid CBSE initially proposed extending the policy to class IX this year butrolled it back after widespread opposition.He said that replacing foreign languages such as French and German with an Indian language would effectively leave students with Hindi orSanskrit because of the availability of teachers.Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had assured thatEnglish would continue as an official language as long as non-Hindi-speakingstates wanted it. The assurance was later reinforced through legal safeguardsby former prime ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi, Tagore said.He urged the Centre to withdraw the mandatory three-languagepolicy and leave school education entirely to the states since education is inthe concurrent list and both the state and the Centre have equal responsibilityon education.
