The Delhi Tamil Students’ Association (DTSA) will now be appealing to the Central Information Commission (CIC) for information as on which basis Delhi University takes a compulsory hindi test for undergraduate students. This occurred because it was getting no response to it’s RTI query about the same.
As per Delhi University, students who have not studied Hindi after 8th grade in school have to pass a compulsory hindi test or CTH.
“ It is a central university, where students cone from various parts of the country to get quality education. For most of its students, those who are from Tamil Nadu and Kerala or from the Northeast , Hindi is not their first language.” “The policy of the university to make it compulsory to study Hindi for those students who don’t speak that language is a clear discrimination on the basis of language prohibited under Article 29 (2) of the Constitution,” DTSA president Shravana was quoted as saying.
Sharavena said that he will seek all the information regarding this CTH, each and every record that provides rules and other information relating to this test and also he would go through minutes of the governing body meeting wherein CTH was approved and made mandatory. According to him it is quite unjust to give exemption to the Northeast students only and not to the students from the South.
“CTH has nothing to do with our course, if the university is still keen on taking this test then they should atleast provide us with teachers to guide us through it,” Sharavena said.
“Last year students approached High Court, seeking exemption from this test. The court said it wasn’t authorized to declare an exemption. It said that we should rather challenge the test. Hence, we filed RTIs to find about the ordinance through which the test is being conducted,” he added.