Maharashtra: Academicians welcome scrapping of GRs on three language policy

Now, Fadnavis has announced that the GRs will be scrapped and a committee headed by Dr Narendra Jadhav will relook the issue.

Laxmikant Deshmukh, the chairperson of the government-appointed Language Consultation Committee that has been strongly opposing the move, said that the government has bowed to the unity of the Marathi people.

“There was no need to introduce a third language without putting any thought into the decision. Hindi language is being taught from class 5.

So, increasing the student’s burden from class 1 was not required. There is also no need to form the committee and the move should have been just cancelled completely. It gives the feeling that the government still has the thought of implementing Hindi as the third language. The fear will remain,” he told The Indian Express.

Vasant Kalpande, former Director of School Education of Maharashtra, said it was wrong to make such a GR in the first place.

“Now, a committee has been formed. We had recommended the same to the SCERT director today. Although the meeting had no relation to this decision (of scrapping), the decision was made parallely,” he added.

Milind Joshi, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Mahamandal, shared a statement saying the decision is in the interest of the state and its students. “ On behalf of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Mahamandal, I congratulate him (Fadnavis) wholeheartedly. He was the one who had taken the initiative to make Marathi Language education compulsory. I hope that he will continue to make decisions in the interest of the Marathi language in the future,” the statement mentioned.

Former head of Maharashtra School Principals Association Mahendra Ganpule told The Indian Express said that the announcement has been made to cool down the political climate that had emerged.

“But a committee has been formed under Narendra Jadhav. Who will be the members of that committee? We can say that at least for this year this crisis has been averted but the fight will have to be kept on until the decision of having a third language doesn’t get completely cancelled,” he added.

7-hour marathon meet

Earlier in the day, two marathon meetings stretching to 7 hours took place at the State Council Of Educational Research And Training in Pune between officials, academics and language stakeholders over the three-language issue.

SCERT Director Rahul Rekhawar and Education Commissioner Sachindra Pratap Singh met Deshmukh, Kalpande, Joshi, Ganpule, Deccan Education Society’s Anand Katikar, former Joint director of education Bhau Gawande, former education secretary of Balbharti Dhanwanti Hardikar, who expressed their opposition to the introduction of the three-language policy.

Just as the last few members of the meeting were walking out of the gate of the building at 7pm, news of Fadnavis announcing the cancellation of the GRs rolled in.