Venkaiah Naidu stresses promotion of mother tongue

AHMEDABAD: Criticising what he called "English mentality" that makes Indians encourage their children to speak in English, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu today stressed the need to promote use of mother tongue among kids.

"We should teach our children to speak in mother tongue. Whether it is Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Malayali, Assamese, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, whatever it is, we should teach mother tongue to our children, the language that comes from the womb," Naidu said, addressing a Swachh Bharat Mission programme here.

"When leaving the country (after India gained Independence), Englishmen left behind English mentality because of which we teach our children to say 'mummy', 'daddy'," the Urban Development and Information and Broadcasting Minister said.


He showed through gesture how the word 'maa', which in many Indian languages mean to address mother, comes from the gut while 'mummy', an English word, comes from the lip.

"When talking to each other, children should be encouraged to speak in Gujarati (mother tongue), why use English?" Naidu said, giving example of how on their recent visits to India, the Chinese, French and Russian Presidents spoke in their mother tongue despite knowing English.

"I am not against English, we should learn English, as well as Hindi, but we should always practice, speak and teach kids to speak in mother tongue. Otherwise, in the coming times, all those speaking in their mother tongue will also begin talking in broken English," he quipped.

During the programme, Naidu announced that the Centre has handed over a cheque of Rs 290 crore to Gujarat for urban development programme.

While praising the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said Modi's mantra of "reform, transform and perform" has improved service delivery to beneficiaries while cutting out middlemen.