Hindi in Northeast: Is India shifting towards majoritarianism?

The recent statement of Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah has sparked controversies and evoked strong reactions from all over the country, especially in the South and Northeast India. Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated in the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee that Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English. 

According to the Press Information Bureau (PIB) sources, the Union Home minister suggested to the committee that it is time to revise the Hindi dictionary, even mentioning that 70 per cent of the Union Cabinet’s agenda is now prepared in Hindi. Further, he also added that the “time has come to make the Official Language an important part of the unity of the country. When people from states which speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India,” implicitly asking for the imposition of Hindi in India which has led many to reckon if India is shifting towards a majoritarian government.

Majoritarianism and democracy

Majoritarianism, as opposed to democracy, although both rest on the primacy of numbers, is the belief that the majority community should be able to rule a state/country in whichever way it wants by disregarding the wishes and needs of the minority. In essence, while democracy pushes for the welfare of all its citizens despite numbers, majoritarianism is a form of governance where minority welfare is denied altogether. To this, Adam Przeworski and José María Maravall in their book Democracy and the Rule of Law state that majoritarianism is a political philosophy that asserts that the majority of the population is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society.