Lecture at Chitrakoot University Reaffirms Role of Indian Languages in Cultural Revival Ahead of World Hindi Day

The year 2025 proved significant for India in terms of strengthening the roots of Indian culture. The 300th birth anniversary of Lokmata Ahilyabai Holkar and the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram rekindled national awareness of India’s cultural heritage. In this context, renewed attention to Indian languages became both natural and necessary.

Ahead of World Hindi Day on January 10, a one-day Lecture and Discussion on the Indian Language Family, sponsored by the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti (Ministry of Education, Government of India), was organised at Mahatma Gandhi Chitrakoot Gramodaya University. The event marked a memorable conclusion to 2025, with its resonance expected to continue into January 2026. While Indian languages will receive special prominence at the World Book Fair in New Delhi, World Hindi Day will further showcase the expanding global reach of Hindi.

The deliberations at Gramodaya University strongly reaffirmed the responsibility to preserve and nurture India’s native languages.

Addressing the gathering, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Alok Chaubey stated that Indian languages enhance understanding among people, promote mutual affection and serve as a powerful medium of social integration.

He urged students to study at least one additional Indian language along with their mother tongue and called for deep reflection on past mistakes made in the name of language so that meaningful reforms could be introduced.

Presiding over the programme, Prof. Chaubey said that Indian languages play a positive role in students’ overall development and educational progress. He stressed that children achieve true first-hand understanding in their mother tongue. Referring to an experiment conducted at IIT Jodhpur, he explained that when second-year engineering students were allowed to take branch-selection examinations in Hindi, those who opted for Hindi performed better than students who took the exam in English.

The Chief Guest, Prof. Yogendra Pratap Singh from the Department of Hindi and Indian Languages, Allahabad University, Prayagraj, remarked that India’s knowledge tradition reveals the Indian language family as a family of unity. He described Sanskrit as a scientifically structured language and the universally accepted mother of Indian languages.

The keynote speaker and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Prof. Nandlal Mishra, explained that language is the medium through which ideas are exchanged and also offered a psychological perspective on the nature of language.

Two books published with the aim of uniting the Indian language family were also released by the dignitaries on this occasion.

Programme Convener and Head of the Hindi Department, Prof. Lalit Kumar Singh, outlined the background, relevance and objectives of the event. He stated that the Indian language family is a living reflection of India’s rich and multi-coloured culture. Language is not merely a tool of communication, he said, but also a carrier of identity, history and cultural consciousness.

He praised the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti for taking innovative initiatives to connect India through language.

The vote of thanks was delivered by Prof. Neelam Chaure, Head of the Department of Political Science.

The programme was attended by Prof. Kapil Dev Mishra, Prof. Pragya Mishra, Prof. Ajay R. Chaure, Prof. Sunita Singh, Prof. Kamlesh Kumar Thapak, Prof. Ghanshyam Gupta, Prof. Y. K. Singh, Prof. Tribhuvan Singh, Dr. Jayaprakash Tiwari, along with faculty members, staff and students of Gramodaya University.