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Former Indian cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin was at a private engineering college during the graduation ceremony in which he weighed in on the language debate.
Ravichandran Ashwin opens up on language debate (Photo: CNN-News18)
Former Indian cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin, who retired from international cricket last year in the middle of Australia tour, has weighed in on the debate of Hindi being a national or an official language.
Attending the graduation ceremony at a private engineering college in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, his home state, Ashwin said that Hindi is “not a national language, but an official language”.
As Ashwin took the dais to speak, he confirmed how many of the attendees were those understanding English, Tamil and Hindi.
“English students in the house..give me a yay. Tamil (students cheer loudly)…okay..Hindi (very little noise from the crowd).. I wanted to say Hindi is an official language and not the national language,” Ashwin said.
Language Debate In India
The Constitution of India terms Hindi as an official language. September 14 is observed as Hindi Diwas to commemorate the Constituent Assembly of the country giving Hindi the status of official language of the Union government.
According to the Census 2011, 43.63 per cent of Indians spoke Hindi as their mother tongue.
More to follow…