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Context
It makes no sense for India, which prides itself on its multilingualism, to make a case for Hindi at the UN
Official languages at UN
- Chinese, French, English, Russian and Spanish were the UN official languages, but by subsequent resolutions over the years, all five became working languages too
- In 1973, Arabic was adopted by the General Assembly as an official and a working language
Why push for Hindi as an official UN language?
Obtaining official language status for Hindi at the UN is an attractive way of enhancing its stature among languages and propagating the greater use of Hindi
Hindi is spoken not only in India, but also in Fiji, Suriname, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana
Required support
India needs to get a two-thirds support
The problem
- Wastage of resources: Even if the funding part was taken care of, it will be a gross waste of resources to spend millions of dollars every year to fund the required translation and interpretation work
- It makes no sense for a country like India, which prides itself on its multilingualism, to make a case for Hindi at the UN. It will be quite incongruous (inappropriate) for India to spend good money on interpretation and translation at the UN, when many of its own representatives use English
- Other languages are spoken too: It is quite a strange thing to say as other Indian languages too are spoken in several countries. Bangladesh has asked for official language status for Bengali in the UN, and the West Bengal Assembly has passed a resolution supporting the claim.
UN resolution on multilingualism
The last General Assembly resolution on the status of multilingualism at the UN noted with concern that the availability of official documents in all official languages was “limited in some areas of Secretariat activity”. Hence, when even the UN is some distance away from achieving its multilingual goals;expecting it to include one more language may be quite naïve
Conclusion
As a country known for its linguistic pluralism, India should not give an impression on the global stage that it has one pre-eminent language. The government must not embark on this needless pursuit
