Nara Lokesh Faces Backlash for Calling Hindi a National Language

Nara Lokesh — Andhra Pradesh Minister for Education and IT. For some time now, party leaders, under the direction of Chandrababu Naidu, have been tirelessly working to project Lokesh as a future leader. Despite holding the crucial portfolio of Education, Nara Lokesh embarrassed himself during an interview with India Today TV. This interview has now gone viral on social media. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, introduced by the Centre, has sparked significant controversy in recent times. Several states have strongly opposed it. Recently, even the Maharashtra government rolled back its decision to mandate the teaching of Hindi from Classes 1 to 5, following uproar over the three-language policy. Along with Tamil Nadu, many other states are also firmly rejecting this proposal. In this context, Nara Lokesh ended up in trouble during his interview with India Today, where he referred to Hindi as the "national language." Even as the TV anchor insisted that Hindi is not a national language, Lokesh stuck to his position, stating that there is nothing wrong in promoting Hindi. He said it would be good to have Hindi as a connecting language among the people of the country and emphasized that learning more languages brings more benefits.

At a time when even the BJP-ruled state of Maharashtra has backed off from pushing Hindi, Nara Lokesh’s open support for a policy introduced by the Modi government has become a point of interest. On one side is Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, and on the other is Nara Lokesh—both seemingly competing to earn brownie points with Prime Minister Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah by making pro-Hindi statements. While Pawan Kalyan recently faced criticism for calling Hindi a “stepmother language,” now Nara Lokesh is facing backlash for calling Hindi a national language. As a result, he is being heavily trolled on social media. People are questioning whether the Education Minister himself doesn’t know that Hindi is just one of the official languages, not the national language.