Campaign for Hindi
The Indian community has stepped up efforts for Hindi to be included in the list of national languages, reports Gaurav Pandey
The newly formed Australian Hindi Committee (AHC) has strongly argued for Hindi’s inclusion in the list of languages by Australia Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (ACARA) list of foreign languages for Australian national language curriculum development.
In a submission made on behalf of the Indian community to ACARA – the body responsible for developing a national curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12 – AHC has sought to address the criteria for the inclusion of a language in the national curriculum, stressing that Hindi meets all the requirements to make the list as a “first stage” language.
In what many in the Indian community see as a glaring omission, Hindi or any other Indian language failed to make it to the list of national languages in ACARA’s initial draft released for consultation and feedback from the public. Tara Chand Sharma, the coordinator of Australian Hindi Committee said that the omission means that Hindi’s claim as a language of global significance and culture was not recognised by ACARA. “It’s our responsibility to look after our interests and we need to make a decision today to support Hindi.”
AHC, in a media release, said it “strongly demands” that Hindi be included in the list. “The long-term cost of not including Hindi, in terms of missed economic opportunities and emergence of Australian identity in the community of Asian nations, would be too high. We as Australians of Indian origin strongly urge ACARA to include Hindi in National curriculum in the first stage without losing crucial time,” the release said.
AHC appealed to the Indian community to indicate Hindi as the language spoken in their homes in the coming census as official policy decisions rely heavily on census figures. This, the release adds, will help in ensuring the census figures are a true representation of reality.
In the past, owing to a bizarre misconception among many in the Indian community that marking Hindi as the language spoken at their homes would bring into question their ability to speak English, many have done Hindi a disservice that’s reflected as a comparatively lower number of Hindi speakers in Australian census data.
Highlighting the fact that officials often cited “lack of demand” as the reason why Hindi was not being taught in schools, AHC appealed to parents to insist that the language be taught at schools and encourage their children to take up Hindi in the HSC.
AHC’s submission highlighted the global importance of Hindi, stressing that it is the second largest spoken language in the world and that learning the language was in the long term strategic and economic interests of Australia, as by 2026 India would be one of Australia’s largest trading partners.
AHC also stressed that language is synonymous with culture and that Indian-Australians should be proud of their Indian cultural heritage as much as their Australian identity. The need for wider acceptance of Hindi is also accentuated by the increasing migration from India and other Hindi speaking countries such as Nepal and Fiji.
In a media presentation, Mr. Sharma said that the current provision of teaching Hindi outside the school hours during weekends through Saturday Schools of Community Languages and the NSW Community Language Schools program is inadequate as it involves unnecessary cost for parents and extra travel time for students.
Under the current proposal released by ACARA, Hindi does not find mention in any of the three stages of language development. The first stage, which implies that the language is taught during the normal school hours, currently includes Chinese and Italian; the former cited as “a national priority” and the “language with greatest range of learners,” and the latter as “the language learnt by the largest number of students in the primary years.” The second stage includes French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish; while Arabic, Modern Greek and Vietnamese are included in the third stage.
AHC is an informal body supported by concerned individuals and groups to promote the cause of Hindi in Australia. In addition to the submissions made to ACARA and other relevant individuals/groups, ACA has been involved in regular meetings and representations before authorities. A campaign to collect 10,000 signatures on a petition in support of Hindi is also currently under way to put pressure on the administration.
