I Speak Hindi With Lot Of Hesitation, The Language Gives Me Shivers, Says FM Nirmala Sitharaman

She said she was born and attended college in Tamil Nadu amid an agitation against Hindi. Students opting for Hindi or Sanskrit as the second language did not get scholarships by the state government.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said speaking Hindi gives her ‘shivers’ and that she speaks the language with hesitation. Addressing an event organised by Hindi Vivek Magazine, the Union Minister made the statement referring to the previous speaker’s announcement that the speech will be in Hindi.  

"Addressing an audience in Hindi gives me shivers," a candid Sitharaman said, adding, “I speak Hindi with a lot of 'sankoch' (hesitation).”

She said she was born and attended college in Tamil Nadu amid an agitation against Hindi. Students opting for either Hindi or Sanskrit as the second language did not get scholarships by the state government, she said.

Sitharaman said although it is difficult for a person to learn a new language once grown up, she could pick-up her husband's mother tongue Telugu, but failed to learn Hindi may be due to past happenings.

However, she continued her speech in Hindi that lasted over 35 minutes.

Talking about the Indian economy, Sitharaman said India could have achieved the fifth position in the world earlier, but for the imported philosophy of socialism which depended on centralised planning.

She termed the 1991 economic reforms by the then Congress government as "aadhe-adhure reforms" (half-baked reforms), where the economy was not opened in the right way.

“No progress happened till the BJP's Atal Bihari Vajpayee took on the PMship and his focus on infrastructure building, roads and mobile telephony helped us a lot. Ten more years were lost after the corrupt UPA government came to power, where the focus was making personal gains and the country's interests were left behind,” Sitharaman said.

She further said that after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, he initiated fundamental path-breaking reforms, including the direct benefit transfer scheme that has ensured transparency in public delivery without leakages. Benefits of up to Rs 2 lakh crore have occurred as a result of the scheme, the Union Minister added.