After he realised he made a terrible mistake by touching the most sensitive issue of tamils whose spread more than 100million across world this was his reaction ” I was constantly nudged to speak in English, my words manipulated, says
AYUSH Ministry Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha
The blunder he did was he triggered a controversy after he allegedly asked participants of an online conference, who couldn’t speak Hindi, to leave.
This happened Secretary of the Union ministry of AYUSH Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha made the comments on Thursday , while addressing the participants of the AYUSH ministry’s training session.
Kotecha was appointed as the secretary of AYUSH Ministry in 2017 for three years and in May this year, he got an extension for another two years.
After BJP government take over they appointed secretary level post directly from outside recruitment . Though this has created furore amongst IAS officers circle they didn’t exhibit their opposition in open forum yet .
A video of the address was shared widely on social media. “I want to congratulate people who have taken the time to attend this event in the past two days,” the secretary said. “I have got information that, for the past two days, there has been an issue…people can leave…I don’t speak English very well. So, I will speak in Hindi.”
Delegates from non-Hindi speaking states, including a group of 37 government yoga and naturopathy practitioners from Tamil Nadu, tried to share their concerns with authorities over loss of communication at the conference, but did not receive any response.
The three-day training programme, that began on August 18, primarily used Hindi as a medium of instruction, the attendees said. Trainees from Andhra Pradesh and Kerala had also participated in the sessions.
A representative of the Indian Naturopathy and Yoga Graduates’ Medical Association told that other officials holding the training session chose to speak Hindi despite knowing English.
“So much of the programme was Greek and Latin to participants from the South,” he said. The representative also said that Kotecha was “rude and unsympathetic” to the participants who approached him.
After a row over his purported remark on non-Hindi speaking people during an online conference this week, AYUSH Ministry Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha Saturday said the conference of AYUSH trainers was “gate-crashed by uninvited participants”, who were constantly “nudging” him to speak in English.
Kotecha’s statement to media came two days after he reportedly asked participants at the conference, who didn’t not understand Hindi, to leave as he isn’t very fluent in English.
A video clip of the conference, which Kotecha said is “morphed”, has gone viral on social media.
His purported remarks at the conference, which was organised for AYUSH trainers across the country, were termed “insulting” by some associations of medical practitioners in Tamil Nadu. The conference was on ‘Yoga Training for Master Trainers of States’.
However, he claimed, the “meeting was gate-crashed by several uninvited participants who were constantly nudging me to speak in English. While I was trying and speaking in both languages, these people who gained illegal access, were constantly interrupting me by repeating ‘Only English, Only English’.
“I humbly conveyed that I am not fluent in English, but trying to speak in both languages and if they are unable to follow, they can leave,” Kotecha said.
Claiming that the video clip circulating on social media is “morphed”, the secretary said that according to the invite, the number of invited participants was 350, who all should be government officials.
But, there were 430 people who had joined the online conference, he said. “It shows that the meeting was gate-crashed,” he added.
According to Kotecha, who is also an ayurvedic doctor and the former vice-chancellor of Jamnagar-based Gujarat Ayurveda University, it is not the first time he was addressing a national-level meeting using “mixed language”.
“I am not sure of the agenda behind manipulating my words and blowing it out of proportion and circulating a morphed video, but it is not the first time that I have used mixed language during national level interactions.”
He added that “trainers from northern India, especially from Uttar Pradesh belt, request for Hindi-based interaction whereas trainers in southern India, request for English. I am more proficient in Hindi. But I have always tried to interact in both languages and no one has ever minded that.”
The video of the programme is not available in public domain as the meeting was organised for internal training purpose of only government officials.
Tamilnadu politicians cutting across the party line demanded the resignation of Kotecha and action against him by the Minsitry
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