Jorhat, Feb. 12: Author and scholar Bhalchandra Nemade has said a language acceptable to all was the need of the hour in the country.

Delivering the inaugural address during the national seminar on Nineteenth Century Indian Renaissance and its Reflection on Contemporary Writings to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Lakshminath Bezbaroa at the Dibrugarh University auditorium here today, Nemade, convener of Marathi Sahitya Akademi and a writer of fiction, said Hindi was not acceptable to all.

The language did not find favour in the south and some other parts of India, he added.

The two-day seminar is being organised by Sahitya Akademi and Lakshminath Bezbaroa Chair, department of Assamese, Dibrugarh University.

He, however, was not in favour of English being accepted as the lingua franca for communication stressing that Indians had always been borrowers of modernity from western civilisations, thus losing their own tradition.

He laid emphasis on the importance of one’s mother tongue. “The first lessons of a child should be in the mother tongue,” he said.

The programme was chaired by Karabi Deka Hazarika, professor, Lakshminath Bezbaroa chair of the department of Assamese, Dibrugarh University.

The welcome speeches were delivered by Gautam Paul, officer-in-charge, Sahitya Akademi, Calcutta and Arpana Konwar, head of the department of Assamese, Dibrugarh University.

Ram Kumar Mukhapadhyay, director of Viswa Bharati Granthana Vibhag, Calcutta and convener of Bengali Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi, urged to make literature and society “pollution-free and full of energy and enthusiasm” like free-flowing water.

Chief guest Nagen Saikia, former president of the Asam Sahitya Sabha and a litterateur, spoke on the life and contributions of Lakshminath Bezbaroa. He said Bezbaroa re-evaluated Sankardev, the great Vaishnavite saint of Assam and his philosophy in a new perspective.

“And now it is our earnest duty to rediscover Bezbaroa in the same way,” he said.