National Language of India: a myth or reality a talk by Shyam Rudra Pathak

"Compulsory status of English is causing large scale ruination of our talents from the group of non-English knowing people. There is a high correlation between the English knowing people and the affluent sections of the society. The compulsory status of English in all India competitive examinations produces a merit list which is in favour of the English knowing society of the country. This leads to the exclusion of the talents who are not in a position to receive education in the English medium. Government schools by and large teach the vast number of students in the media of Indian languages, whereas the competitive examinations held on the all India level are mostly held in the English medium and they contain compulsory English language paper as well. This situation not only deprives the students of the lower and middle stratum of the society of getting the developmental opportunities, but it also deprives the country of using its vast pool of the natural resource of the talents of its majority of the people. This is one of the root causes of the backwardness of this country. One additional dimension to the discrimination on the linguistic basis is among the Hindi belt and nonhindi belt people because there are many developmental opportunities being made available in the Hindi medium but not in the nonHindi Indian languages' media. Indians are the rarest of the unfortunate people in this world where people cannot seek justice in their own languages in the high courts and the Supreme court according to the constitutional provision laid down in article 348 of the Indian constitution. However, the central government goes beyond the constitution of India in discriminating between the Hindi belt and nonhindi belt people while making linguistic provisions in the high courts.

A brief about the Speaker: Shyam Rudra Pathak is India's social-cultural worker. He is the coordinator of 'Campaign and Development Campaign' campaign.

He has written about himself: "If I recollect my childhood days I realize that I took deeper interest in agricultural activities before I started taking interest in studies. I remember I was considered a weak student for many years in my village school. I started taking interest in studies when I was asked to prepare for the admission test of Netarhat Vidyalay at the age of eleven or twelve. I passed that admission test and took admission in that school in class VI from where I appeared in my matriculation board examination. I was provided a silver medal by the Bihar board for securing one of the top ten positions in the 1979 secondary school examination. In 1980 I took admission in 5 years integrated M S Physics course in IIT Delhi after obtaining an all India rank of 1330 in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for the IITs. I got the first position in the All India GATE 1985 examination and took admission in M Tech in Energy Studies in IIT Delhi in 1985. The biggest achievement of my life is the removal of compulsory English Language Paper in JEE from 1988 and the introduction of optional Indian Languages media in JEE from 1990. My efforts for this included several fasts as well, the longest among which was of nineteen and a half days duration undertaken in July/August 1989.

I wrote my MS Physics project report in Hindi in IIT Delhi and it was first rejected on that ground but was later on accepted after the issue was highlighted in newspapers, magazines and finally in the Parliament. The degrees started being given in Hindi and English in IITD from the convocation of 1985 after I refused to accept it in English alone, for which the convocation of the year 1985 had to be postponed in which the then PM Rajeev Gandhi was the chief guest. I wrote my M Tech Project Report also in Hindi, which was also not accepted in the beginning but was later on accepted after the issue was raised by some parliamentarians.

I worked as a research scholar in Energy Studies in IIT Delhi and in Astrophysics in TIFR Mumbai and TIFR Pune. I was expelled twice from TIFR Pune during this programme, although I held the first rank in the all India written examination for the research scholars selection of the TIFR and I had also obtained the first rank in the graduate programme (course woks and project) for the research scholars of TIFR Pune of my batch.

I took part in the anti Mandal agitation in 1990 and was sent to Tihar jail in that connection for about two days.

I remained in the Tihar Jail for the second time from July 17 till July 24, 2013 after refusing to stop my Dharana in spite of being arrested and released every day on 225 days from December 4, 2012 till July 16, 2013 in front of the residence of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and the National head office of the congress party in Delhi. This Dharana was undertaken with the demand of amending article 348 of the Indian Constitution so that people can seek justice in their languages in the High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. I was made the sole leader of the CSAT agitation during its later half period by the thousands of agitating UPSC aspirants in 2014 in Delhi. I am still facing a criminal case filed by the Modi govt against me in this connection."