On Hindi vs English debate, Kamal Nath's BIG QUESTION to Shivraj Chouhan

In the backdrop of Union Home Minister Amit Shah releasing MBBS textbooks in Hindi here, Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath has asked why a similar initiative with an engineering course was shelved in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state. On Sunday, Shah released textbooks in Hindi of three subjects for the first year students of MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) as part of an ambitious project of the Madhya Pradesh government to impart medical education in the Indian language, a first in the country.

In a statement issued on Sunday evening, Nath claimed Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan organises such events to divert people's attention from the "worsening" health services in the state. The Bhopal-based Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hindi Vishwavidyalaya had started an engineering course in Hindi in 2016, and "tall" claims were made about it at that time, but the course was closed later, the Congress leader said.

"Hindi is our mother tongue and I respect the language. We are not against imparting education in Hindi medium and there is no objection to it. The government is starting medical education in Hindi, but it should tell us about the shortage of doctors in the state and what steps it has taken to address this problem," Nath said in the statement.

He said Madhya Pradesh faces a shortage of physicians.

"As per a report of the Medical Council of India, there is an acute shortage of doctors in the state. There is one doctor per 3,500 persons in the state, while as per a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, ideally the doctor to patient ratio should remain 1:1,000," the former chief minister added.
In his statement, the senior Congress leader alleged the health system in the rural areas were being helmed by paramedical staff. Hitting out further at the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state, Nath asked why several announcements made in the Tenth World Hindi Conference held in 2015 in Bhopal were yet to be fulfilled.

Meanwhile, sources in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Hindi University said the engineering course that was started in Hindi in 2016 was stopped in the absence of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) approval.

Moreover, very few students took admission in the Hindi medium engineering course at the time, and even these shifted to the standard course later, they claimed.

However, a senior professor of the state's technical university said the AICTE has now made serious preparations to start engineering courses in 12-13 languages, including Hindi, from the 2022-23 academic sessions.

The professor said work on this initiative in Marathi medium was in an advanced stage.

During the Sunday event in Bhopal, Home Minister Shah had said the move to impart medical education in Hindi would enhance the ability of students and give them an opportunity to come out of a linguistic inferiority complex.

Shah had released textbooks in Hindi of three subjects - Anatomy, Medical Biochemistry and Medical Physiology - for MBBS students at the event.