The Kerala education minister, V Sivakutty, said on Monday that the National Council of Educational Research and Training’s (NCERT) decision to give Hindi titles for English medium textbooks is irrational and calls for a review.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam  (DMK) Government in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu has been opposing the three-language policy in the New Education Policy 2020, viewing it as the imposition of Hindi inside the Southern states.

United Against Hindi

“The NCERT decision is against federal principles and the Constitutional values. It is not only a violation of common logic, but an incident of foisting one’s cultural values in such a manner sabotaging the linguistic diversity of our country,” said  Sivakutty, also a Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader. He also urged other non-Hindi-speaking states to stand united against this type of language imposition from the centre.

According to the new move of the NCERT, the English textbook of class six, which was previously called ‘Honeysuckle’, will now be titled ‘Poorvi’, a Hindi word that translates to ‘Eastern’ and is also the name of a Raag in Hindustani classical music. Other changes include the name change of the class one English textbook to Mridang and the class three textbook to Santoor.