Erstwhile governments tried to "cripple" the country by not emphasising imparting education in native languages, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said here on Wednesday.?

Addressing the All India Official Language Conference in Surat city on Hindi Day, Shah said the "linguistic inferiority" created by the British regarding the Rajbhasha Hindi and native Indian languages needs to be discarded.

"The previous governments worked to cripple the country by not emphasizing providing education in native languages but Prime Minister Narendra Modi started speaking in Hindi at world forums and he is heard more intensely than the leaders speaking in English," Shah said.?

He urged the youth to shed language-related inferiority and accept their mother tongue and Rajbhasha Hindi. Shah appealed to parents to talk to their children in their mother tongue.

"Until our youth express their thoughts in their mother tongue, they cannot put forward their potential before society. The expression of one's original thought cannot happen in a language other than one's own," Shah added.

(With PTI inputs)