Several Union government websites have begun adopting Hindi web addresses amid growing debate over the Narendra Modi-led Centre’s alleged push to make Hindi the de-facto national language, as per reports.
“गृहमंत्रालय.सरकार.भारत” is now the official URL for the Ministry of home affairs, which many see in line with the Universal Acceptance (UA) movement’s call for a multilingual Internet.
The older URL, “mha.gov.in/en”, still leads to the same content, but notably, Google search results now prioritise the Hindi site. The familiar country code “.in” is absent, replaced by a Hindi script version “.भारत”.
TTO
According to a report by The Hindu, the MHA quietly started making the changes to the URL of its official website a year ago.
This comes at a time of “fierce resistance to the Narendra Modi government’s attempts to present Hindi as the de-facto national language”, according to the same report.
For decades, the Domain Name System (DNS) operated primarily on the ASCII character set, limiting website addresses and email IDs to English alphabets.
That’s slowly changing.
Today, browsers use a system called Punycode to support non-English scripts. This means that while users may type or see “गृहमंत्रालय.सरकार.भारत”, the browser interprets it in encoded form behind the scenes.
The goal is a multilingual internet that’s accessible to users across India’s diverse linguistic spectrum.
In 2023, the Ministry of electronics & IT (MEITy) organised a two-day Universal Acceptance Day, promoting a “multilingual internet for digital inclusion”.
While The Hindu noted that the ministry was among those that had adopted Hindi domain names, “the MEITy site showed the English URL even for the Hindi version,” highlighting the inconsistencies still plaguing the rollout.
Other Indian language domain equivalents, like “.இந” in Tamil, technically exist. But private sector uptake has remained scarce, making the government’s choice to spotlight only Hindi all the more contentious.
In a nation as linguistically complex as India, where language shapes not just identity but access and power, even a change as subtle as a URL can ignite long-standing tensions. And it has.
The three-language flashpoint
It’s not just about URLs.
The controversy has taken a sharper turn with the rollout of the National Education Policy (NEP) and its three-language formula, which the Tamil Nadu government has vehemently rejected.
Also, the Union government has threatened to stop funding Tamil Nadu under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan unless it adopts the three-language mandate.
Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has been unapologetic. He dismissed the NEP as a “destructive Nagpur plan”, referencing the RSS’s ideological headquarters, and vowed to oppose it even if “the Centre were to offer 10,000 crore rupees in exchange”.
The state continues to uphold its two-language policy — Tamil and English — which it credits for its educational and economic advancement.
A war of words
The language divide also turned personal during a recent rally in Tamil Nadu, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a jab at Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders.
“These ministers from Tamil Nadu talk about pride in their language but always write letters to me and sign off in English. Why don’t they use the Tamil language? Where is their Tamil pride?” he asked.
His remarks only aggravated tensions.
The Modi government stands accused of deliberate Hindi imposition through its schemes and policies — all of which bear Hindi names, like Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and Jan Dhan Yojana. The Hindi Division under the government actively promotes the language internationally, with speeches and documents translated across embassies.
In 2022, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced the recruitment of 22,000 Hindi teachers in the Northeastern states, where Hindi is not commonly spoken — yet another move that opponents called “colonial”.
Even the NCERT has not been spared
Recent media reports point to the renaming of English-language textbooks with Hindi titles.
The old English Class VI and VII textbooks — Honeysuckle and Honeycomb — are now titled Poorvi, a word of Hindi origin. The mathematics book, previously titled Mathematics, is now called Ganita Prakash — in both Hindi and English versions.
Over 50 per cent of Indian population doesn’t speak in Hindi
India is home to over 520 million Hindi speakers, nearly 43% of the population, according to a 2011 census.
While Hindi enjoys official status alongside English, it is not the national language, a distinction that many forget.
Tamil Nadu’s resistance is not without precedent.
The state has a long and at times violent history of agitations against Hindi imposition.
Language in India is not just identity; it is access, opportunity, and autonomy. That’s what makes this debate so volatile.