Even as finance minister Arun Jaitley was set to present the union Budget-2018 in parliament today, some television news channels ran scrolls on their screens saying that he will deliver his budget speech in Hindi. Soon, the budget language became one of the topics of discussion on social media as some of them found it non-inclusive of the non-Hindi speaking people while others found that even Jaitley was struggling with the “national language.”
As the Budget 2018 was supposed to be the Modi government’s last budget before the 2019 parliament elections, the finance minister ensured that he delivered the speech in Hindi wherever it addressed issues possibly concerning farmers, common man and the rural people.
In an unusual act, Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a post-budget speech addressing the nation on the national broadcaster Doordarshan. Modi’s speech was delivered fully in Hindi, explaining each point in the budget presented by Jaitley.
Twitterati also found a reference to 'pakoda-sellers' in Jaitley's budget and they were quick to connect it with Modi's recent remarks in a television interview in which he said that a person selling ‘pakodas’ and earning Rs 200 per day could not be considered unemployed.
Jaitley ended his speech by quoting Swami Vivekanand from his Memoirs of European Travel, where he said, ‘‘You merge yourselves in the void and disappear, and let new India arise in your place. Let her arise – out of the peasants’ cottage, grasping the plough; out of the huts of the fisherman. Let her spring from the grocer’s shop, from beside the oven of the fritterseller. Let her emanate from the factory, from marts, and from markets. Let her emerge from groves and forests, from hills and mountains’’.
