Bharat Jodo Yatra: Let Students Take Exams In Language Of Their State, Says Rahul Gandhi

Rahul was interacting with around 1,800 youths from all over Karnataka on unemployment and related issues.

Rahul Gandhi interacts with students (Source: Twitter/@INCIndia)

New Delhi: Amid the ongoing Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra, the 52-year-old leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the students should be allowed to write exams in their own languages, as reported by news agency PTI. While interacting with around 1,800 youths from all over Karnataka on unemployment and related issues, the former AICC president said, "A language is much more than simply something you use for conversation. A language has hope, a language has imagination, a language has history in it."

He said, "Every state should have the right to use its language, and if the students want to do the exams in that language, they should be allowed to do exams in that language." 

Rahul Gandhi's assertion comes in the midst of a discussion over a Parliamentary Board's new proposal that the medium of instruction in technical and non-technical higher education institutes, for example, IITs in the Hindi-speaking States ought to be Hindi and in different parts of the country their separate nearby language. It said the use of English should be optional. 

In southern States where Hindi isn't spoken as much, a few political leaders like former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan have communicated issues with the Parliamentary Council's suggestion and termed it "Hindi imposition."

The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered its 35th day on Wednesday. The yatra started from Kanyakumari on September 7 and will conclude in Kashmir, completing 3,500 km and passing through 12 states.

The former Congress chief said this yatra is about fighting unemployment and price rise. In particular, this yatra is defending the interests of farmers, of labourers, of small and medium businesses, he noted. 

The Yatra will enter Andhra Pradesh on October 18 and will be in the state till October 21. It will then re-enter Karnataka's Raichur. The Yatra will take a two-day Diwali break on October 24 and 25 and re-start on October 26, when it will enter Telangana.

(With PTI Inputs)