Gandhinagar, Sep 14 — Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated Hindi Diwas 2025 and the fifth All India Rajbhasha Conference at Mahatma Mandir on Sunday, emphasising that Hindi should be viewed as a “friend” of Indian languages, not as a rival.
“Hindi is not a competitor but a companion language. Hosting this conference across states over the past five years has created new opportunities to strengthen bonds between Hindi and regional languages,” Shah said in his keynote address.
He traced Hindi’s acceptance in Gujarat through leaders like Dayanand Saraswati, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Kanhaiyalal Munshi, and Umashankar Joshi, adding that the coexistence of Gujarati and Hindi has broadened opportunities for future generations.
Calling for the expansion of Hindi’s scope, Shah said it must become a language of science, technology, and justice, not just of conversation and governance. He launched ‘Saarthi’, a translation system enabling government communication between Hindi and regional languages, and highlighted the upgraded Digital Hindi Shabd Sindhu, now containing seven lakh words and projected to become the world’s largest dictionary by 2029.
In a symbolic gesture, Shah distributed AI-enabled smart glasses to visually impaired citizens, which can assist with reading in one’s mother tongue, facial recognition, currency identification, and voice commands. He also urged parents to converse with children in their mother tongue, citing research showing a 30% boost in learning capacity.
Extending greetings on Hindi Diwas, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for building a cultural bridge through languages, echoing the vision of “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat.”
The event also saw release of special publications, felicitation of over a dozen institutions and writers, and participation from more than 6,000 officials and delegates.
