Amit Shah launches ‘Indian Languages Section’ to free administration from foreign language influence

Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the launch of ‘Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag’ (Indian Languages Section), in New Delhi on June 6, 2025. | Photo Credit: X/@PIBHomeAffairs via PTI

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday (June 6, 2025) launched the Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag (BBA), or Indian Languages Section, to provide an organised platform for all Indian languages to move towards “freeing the administration from the influence of foreign languages”.

The Minister said that the Section will incorporate the linguistic diversity of India, adding that “our potential” can be fully exploited only when “our processes of thinking, analysis and decision-making are in our mother tongue.”

“By strengthening all the local languages of the country, we can take India to its eternal glorious position,” the Minister said. All the languages are connected to each other, he claimed.

Moving beyond English, Hindi

The Union Budget for the financial year 2024-25 set aside ₹56 crore to establish the BBA for the “development of a platform to facilitate the translation of various languages into Hindi and vice-versa.”

Anshuli Arya, Secretary of the Official Languages Division at the Ministry of Home Affairs, said on September 13, 2024, that the Official Languages Rules specify the Centre’s language of correspondence with Region A, B, and C States. The rules state that communications from a Union Government office to Region C States, such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, shall be in English.

“Presently we deal in English and Hindi under OL Rules 1976. If we have to send a letter to C States, then it will be in English. The C States feel that their own language is not able to come to the centre stage. The Prime Minister has worked on this aspect, his speeches are translated instantaneously. We are creating the BBA for universal translation. We have roped in the Centre For Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). If a letter written in Tamil by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has to be replied by the Minister, it will be replied in Tamil. States have their own official languages, and BBA will help in the translation work,” Ms. Arya had said.

Published - June 06, 2025 07:34 pm IST