MEA asks HRD to sort out all issues over Kendriya Vidyalaya-German language controversy

NEW DELHI: The ministry of external affairs has asked the HRD ministry to sort out all outstanding issues over the Kendriya Vidyalaya-German language controversy as soon as possible as it could cast a shadow over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Berlin for the world’s largest industrial fair, Hanover Messe, in April 2015.

India is the chief guest at the fair — after the US and China in previous years — and the Prime Minister’s Office considers the event crucial to the Make in India initiative.

In the latest communiqué, a twopage letter dated December 23, foreign secretary Sujatha Singh has asked HRD secretary R Bhattacharya to resume talks with the “German side” and come good on the assurance given by Modi to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Brisbane on November 16 and find a way to continue teaching the tongue in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools but not as a third language.

The government’s diktat discontinuing German as a third language in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools and replacing it with Sanskrit came in for much criticism and subsequently assumed a diplomatic colour when Merkel took up the issue with Modi on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.

The government, however, stuck to its position and justified the midsession change on the ground that offering a foreign tongue as the third language is a violation of the threelanguage policy enshrined in the National Education Policy of 1986. The decision was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court.

As per government sources, talks between the German embassy and the HRD ministry had broken down after minister Smriti Irani lodged her protests over ambassador Michael Steiner speaking to the media on the issue. It has since emerged that MEA summoned Germany’s deputy chief of mission in New Delhi to register its dissatisfaction over this as well as Steiner’s November 11 letter to Irani seeking “clarification”, which the government conveyed is an “internal matter”. ET could not independently verify this with the German embassy.

Singh’s green signal to the HRD ministry to resume talks and finalise “revised arrangements” has come only after the deputy chief of mission conveyed India’s unhappiness to the German foreign office. The nature of the solution that the German and Indian governments are hoping for is not clear at this moment. However, as per sources, the Germans have proposed the language could be taught in classes nine to 12 as it is done in CBSE schools.