Ever since Mansukh Mandaviya took office as the Union Health Minister following the massive cabinet revamp 2 days ago, Twitter is full of trolls on the Minister’s command over English.

The trolls, which seem to be coming from a millennial generation, need to understand that this gentleman is the Union Health Minister of a country where the national language is Hindi. Mansukh Mandaviya has however decided not to comment on such trolls, as he has better and more important things to address. Save lives, for example.

IPS officer Arun Bothra took to Twitter to criticize the trolls. This was much needed. Needed to teach the social media ambassadors of our country that a Minister will be known by the work he has done or that he will do… and not the language that he speaks. Communication in English is unfortunately taken as a benchmark of education and status, while we boast of Hindi as our national language.

That it is the work that makes difference for judging the performance of a minister and not the sophistication of spoken words one can quote the example of former Union Minister of railways Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav, who was also the Chief Minister of Bihar before that. He had a unique style to communicate. However, his work as Railway Minister was praised by top global management institutes viz. the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad; Harvard; Wharton and the likes. Wharton and Harvard sent their students to take management lessons from Lalu Prasad Yadav. Have a look at this video where Lalu is speaking at INSEAD in his epic desi style and the world is taking in each word that he is saying... so much for English.

Obsession with a globally accepted language of communication should be limited to skill sets in specific domains and not form a basis of making opinion about a person having ministerial responsibilities.