India, June 27 -- Facing strong opposition from educationists, political parties and civil society groups, the Maharashtra government has softened its stance on its controversial decision to make Hindi the default third language in state board schools from Class 1.

On a day when cousins Raj and Uddhav Thackeray both attacked the state government over the decision, school education minister Dada Bhuse on Thursday assured that Hindi would not be imposed. He added that the emphasis while teaching the third language in Classes 1-2 will be only on spoken skills, while written assessments will begin only from Class 3 onward.

"There is no compulsion to learn Hindi as a third language. Students can choose any of the 22 Indian languages," said B...