Primary education should be in mother tongue, says RSS

Primary education should be given in mother tongue, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) said on Monday (July 7, 2025), amid a raging controversy over the three-language policy. The statement comes amid a roll-back in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

“All the Indian languages are national languages. This has been the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s stated position for a long time now. In each State, people speak their own language, they insist that primary education should be given in that language. I think, this is a well-established fact for some time now,” Sunil Ambekar, RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh, said in New Delhi.

The statement assumes significance in the background of the protests against the three-language policy. In Maharashtra, the State government had to scrap the two orders implementing the introduction of the third language in primary education. Several civil society members and Opposition parties termed it an effort to ‘impose Hindi’. In a protest held in Mumbai on Monday (July 7, 2025), academics called it the RSS agenda of ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’.

“The BJP is trying to further this agenda of the RSS. Our insistence is on Marathi language, on the complete withdrawal of the three-language policy in primary education in State Board schools,“ Deepak Pawar of the Marathi Abhyas Kendra said on Monday.

Reacting to the statement by the RSS, Maharashtra Minister and BJP leader Ashish Shelar told The Hindu, “There is no doubt about the Sangh statement. Even the BJP believes that primary education should take place in mother tongue. The NEP [National Education Policy] has given prerogative to each State with respect to the three-language policy. Accordingly, the Maharashtra government had taken its decision, which stands cancelled now.”