Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday reiterated that the 2020 National Education Policy will not impose Hindi on states.

The opposition elicited by the plan in Tamil Nadu was driven by political objectives, Pradhan said.

“NEP 2020 is focussed on different languages of India, be it Hindi, Tamil, Odia, Punjabi,” he told reporters. “All languages have equal importance.”

Pradhan said that in Tamil Nadu, “few are opposing [NEP] because of politics”. “We have never said in NEP 2020 that only Hindi will be there, we have only said that education will be based on mother tongue, in Tamil Nadu, it will be Tamil.”

Political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the state’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, have long opposed attempts to impose Hindi as a third language under the three-language formula.

The three-language policy refers to teaching students English, Hindi and the native language of a state. It was introduced in the first National Education Policy in 1968, and was retained in the new policy from 2020.

The comments by Pradhan came two days after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin said that it was unnecessary to force any language as a third language in schools in the age of artificial intelligence.

“Advanced translation technology already removes language barriers instantly,” he said on social media. “Students should not be burdened with extra languages.”

On Sunday, Pradhan was reiterating comments he had made on February 21 saying that the National Education Policy did not advocate for the imposition of any language. The Union education minister, in his letter to Stalin, had also said that several states that did not have Bharatiya Janata Party governments had also implemented the policy despite political differences.

Pradhan had told Stalin that it was inappropriate for Tamil Nadu to view the policy with a “myopic vision” and spin such reforms into threats to sustain their political narratives.

This had come a day after Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in getting dues of Rs 2,152 crore released to Tamil Nadu under the Samagra Shiksha scheme without linking the disbursement of funds to the implementation of the National Education Policy.

Samagra Shiksha, implemented in 2018, is the scheme through which the Union government provides support for elementary and secondary school education.

Stalin had accused the Union government of withholding funds as a tactic to coerce states to adopt centrally-mandated programmes. He said that the state had a two-language policy, which entailed teaching students Tamil and English.

The comments by Stalin were in response to earlier remarks Pradhan had made suggesting that funds under the Samagra Shiksha programme for Tamil Nadu would not be released until the state implemented the National Education Policy in its entirety and adopted the three-language policy.

The 2020 National Education Policy proposes major changes to the curricular structure for school education, claims to promote flexibility in choosing academic streams and emphasises on using the mother tongue as a key medium of instruction in primary school, among other measures.

The policy has been criticised by sections of the academic community, for encouraging the privatisation of public institutions. It was also criticised for creating numerous “exit” options for students, which opponents said would encourage dropouts.

The policy was also criticised for not being sufficiently inclusive of marginalised communities.