Activists decorate a street ahead of International Mother Language Day in Kolkata.
AP Photo/Bikas Das
Participants take part in a rally to mark the International Mother Language Day in Agartala.
PTI Photo
People pay tributes to 'Bhasa Shahids' (language martyrs) at their memorial on International Mother Language Day, in Kolkata.
PTI Photo/Swapan Mahapatra
People hold Bengali alphabets along with India and Bangladesh flags during a programme ahead of International Mother Language Day.
PTI Photo
Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Harsh Vardhan during valedictory function of the 10th World Hindi Conference in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
PTI Photo
Union Minster for Science & Technology Harsh Vardhan is surrounded with students during 10th World HIndi Conference in Bhopal.
PTI Photo
Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the inauguration ceremony of 10th World Hindi Conference at Lal Parade Ground.
PTI Photo
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj with Shivraj Singh Chouhan visiting an exhibition 'Hindi-Kal, Aaj aur Kal' at the venue of 10th World Hindi Conference.
PTI Photo
Prime Minister Narendra Modi presents Golden Jubilee Jnanpith Award to Bhalchandra Nemade at Balyogi auditorium at Parliament House in New Delhi. Trishla Jain, Lifetime Trustee of ...
PTI Photo/Vijay Verma
Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 , winners pose for a group photograph during an award function at Kamani Auditorium in New Delhi.
PTI Photo/Shahbaz Khan
President Pranab Mukherjee and HRD Minister Smriti Irani with awardees during Hindi Sewa Samaan Yojana Awards for the year 2010-2011 function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi...
PTI Photo/RB
Union HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju presents the 22nd Saraswati Samman 2012 to Sugathakumari for her Malayalam poetry collection Manalezhuthu (The writings on the Sand) in Ne...
DMK Leader and MP Kanimozhi also said that the BJP government is trying to push Hindi in non-Hindi speaking states through the three-language formula introduced by the National Education Policy 2020.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said while he supported the idea that all languages should be developed, he will never accept that Hindi can alone unite the country.
"A common language not just for India but any country is good for its unity and progress. Unfortunately, (one cannot) bring a common language in our country. So you cannot impose any language," Rajinikanth said.
Though immersion in more than one language at an early age is useful towards learning more languages, this would only result in functional proficiency.
This is also the bicentennial of the event that made the Dravidian identity possible: the publishing of proof, in 1816, that this was a distinct language family