A strong case for investing in teaching Hindi in US schools exists with India poised to be the 3rd largest economy in the world
Our Bureau
Washington
17 Indian-American state and local elected officials have requested President Joe Biden to set up a new Hindi language fund through the Asia Society to teach Americans Hindi in middle and high schools. The request was presented in a letter to Biden during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing official state visit to the US.
This strategic initiative has the support from both Indian American Impact, a leading community organization, and the Asia Society, a national organization whose purpose is to navigate shared futures for Asia and the world across policy, arts and culture, education, sustainability, business, and technology.
“Although there’s a strategic argument for such funding, we believe there’s an even stronger economic argument for investing in teaching Hindi in American schools,” the letter stated. This request gains significance in the light of the recent Standard & Poor Global forecast that India would surpass Japan and Germany to be the 3rd largest economy in the world within this decade.
“We believe a joint New Hindi Language Fund to teach Hindi in American schools would accelerate the need to address this mismatch where the federal government has failed to provide foreign language support in these growing foreign markets,” the officials wrote.
“Today, we have just 19 Hindi foreign language programs in our high schools across the nation, even though the Indian economy will surpass $7.5 trillion in 2031,” said Jay J. Chaudhuri, North Carolina State Senate Minority Whip, who was spearheading this initiative.
Neil Makhija, IAI president said, “Indian American Impact strongly supports a joint New Hindi Language Fund to teach Hindi, the third most spoken language, in American middle schools and high schools.”
Neelam Chowdhury, The Asia Society’s Vice President of Education, said, “As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, the importance of Hindi cannot be overstated.”
