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The Centre has withheld funds for the Samagra Shiksha scheme in Tamil Nadu due to the state’s refusal to implement the New Education Policy (NEP) of 2020. In a strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin last week sought the release of Rs 2,152 crore pending for the centrally-sponsored scheme meant to support the provisions of the RTE Act.
At the heart of the clash between the BJP-led Centre and DMK-ruled Tamil Nadu is the so-called “three-language formula” that is a part of the NEP. While the Centre maintains that this policy is meant to ensure that youth get employment across regions, Tamil Nadu has long viewed it as an attempt to impose Hindi on the state.
Tamil Nadu has an almost century-old history of anti-Hindi agitations. Unlike most other states — including southern states such as Kerala and Karnataka — it follows a two-language formula in which students are taught only Tamil and English.
The debate over language policy in education — regarding both the medium of instruction and teaching of languages — has existed since Independence. The University Education Commission of 1948-49, chaired by Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who went on to become the second President of India, examined this topic in detail.
This was a political hot potato even then. The Commission’s report notably stated: “No other problem has caused greater controversy among educationists and evoked more contradictory views from our witnesses. Besides, the question is so wrapped up in sentiment that it is difficult to consider it in a calm and detached manner.”
The Radhakrishnan Commission favoured Hindi (Hindustani) as India’s federal language, to be used for all federal activities — administrative, educational and cultural — while regional languages would serve the provinces.
At the same time, the Commission recognised that immediately abandoning English would be impractical. It stated that English would have to continue as “the medium for Federal business” till such time that all provinces are ready for the change, having “spread the Federal language adequately”.
It was this Commission that first proposed what would later become the three-language formula for school education.
“In order to enable every region…to take its proper share in Federal activities, and to promote inter-provincial understanding and solidarity, educated India has to make up its mind to be bilingual, and pupils at the higher secondary and university stages will have to know three languages,” the Radhakrishnan Commission said.
This meant that beyond one’s regional language, every person should “be acquainted with the Federal language” and have “the ability to read books in English”.
This proposal was accepted by the National Education Commission of 1964-66 (Kothari Commission), and was incorporated into the National Policy on Education, 1968 passed by the Indira Gandhi government.
For secondary education, the formula proposed that students learn “a modern Indian language, preferably one of the southern languages, apart from Hindi and English in the Hindi-speaking States” and “Hindi along with the regional language and English in the non-Hindi speaking States.”
The National Policy on Education of 1986, passed by the Rajiv Gandhi government, and the latest NEP of 2020, too retained this formula, although the latter provides for greater flexibility in its implementation.
Unlike previous education policies, the 2020 NEP makes no mention of Hindi.
“The three languages learned by children will be the choices of States, regions, and of course the students themselves, so long as at least two of the three languages are native to India,” the policy states.
This means that in theory, a state can teach any two Indian languages — with neither of them being Hindi — and English.
Over several years, the Centre has maintained that education is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, and that the implementation of the three-language formula is the responsibility of the states.
In 2004, then Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh of the Congress said in Parliament: “The role of the Central Government in the matter of the implementation of the three-language formula is recommendatory. Implementation of this formula is the sole responsibility of the State Governments.”
HRD Minister Smriti Irani, of the BJP, reiterated this position in 2014, saying that it was up to the states to finalise their own curricula and syllabi.
However, now, the Ministry of Education has linked the release of Samagra Shiksha funds to the implementation of the NEP, effectively forcing the hands of the states when it comes to their respective education policies.
