In defense of his supposed anti-English and anti-computers stand, the Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav said on Monday that he opposed the use of English in public life and in government jobs, particularly as he supported the development of Indian languages like Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Oriya, Kannada, and Marathi.

Yadav underlined the significant role that regional languages play in making a nation truly strong, and said that it is because of the cultural degeneration that SP is against making English "compulsory."

Yadav said that his opinion about English and its use has been long-standing. He added that he was happy that SP's stand on English, English schools and extensive use of computers had set off a countrywide debate. Talking to reporters, Yadav said: "I speak in the language of 110 crore people and not of 2 crore; for the Samajwadi Party, the politics of 110 crore is far more important than that of 2 crore. Only uninformed people opposed my views on English and computers."

Commending Mahatma Gandhi for playing a central role towards making Hindi the national language, Yadav said that the increasing use of English and computers was instilling an inferiority complex in rural youth. With specific reference to computer-use, Yadav cited the situation in the US and Japan and said that widespread computerization will increase unemployment!