The Department of Hindi, Jamia Millia Islamia is a Centre for Hindi studies of its own kind in the country. It has a glorious tradition of teaching Hindi. Jamia Millia Islamia is one of the Universities in India where Hindi teaching was started earlier in the beginning of 20t1 century. Son of Mahatma Gandhi and veteran journalist, Hindi Scholar and freedom fighter, Shri Devadas Gandhi was the first Hindi teacher in the University. He was specially sent by the Mahatma in 1928 to Jamia Millia Islamia for the task. Department of Hindi has started a memorial lecture in the name of Shri Devadas Gandhi.

Hindi teaching and promotion of Hindi language were two major issues before independence. Jamia Hindi teachers were actively involved in the cause. Afterindependence Jamia paid attention towards new courses and research in Hindi. It has geared itself to take new challenges that emerged after freedom.

Department offers various courses in Hindi i.e. B.A. Hons. Hindi, B.A.(Hons.) in Mass Media, M.A., M.Phil and Ph.D. Department also offers two Self financingcourses on Media i.e. P.G. Diploma in T.V. Journalism and P.G. Diploma in Journalism. The Department has been a leading department in pursuingcomparative studies especially in Modern Literature and Sufi poetry.

The Hindi Department has the distinction of being the first Hindi Department in the country to have included a compulsory course of Hindu Religious Studies(HRS).

Apart from the above, Department has also designed a very modern look to its traditional courses M.A. and B.A.(Hons.) We have included a number of twentieth-century poets and writers to make the syllabi not only more interesting for today's generation but also to impart it a sense of balance. But this has in no way undermined the importance of medieval Hindi literature in our courses. On the contrary, we have a number of faculty members who are experts in this field.

Another unique quality of the Hindi Department is its emphasis on comparative study of Hindi and Urdu literatures. In our M.A. syllabi, we have a separate andcomprehensive paper on Urdu literature. We have also introduced the study of literature from other Indian languages. We encourage research scholars to doresearch on the folk literature too.

As far as extra curricular activities are concerned, our Department has three committees namely Hindi Samiti (Subject Association), Anusandhan Parishad(Research Council) and Shodh Samiti (Research Committee). Hindi Samiti is meant for encouraging the students to take part in extra curricular activities and the later two have been created to streamline the research activities of the Department and hold thought-provoking seminars from time to time. Students themselves conduct most of the programmes under the auspices of these three committees. Students from all over Jamia participate in the programmes organized by the Hindi Samiti.

As far as research work is concerned, many Research Scholars have been awarded Ph.D. degree and many others are currently doing research in the Department. Over the years, our Department has also collaborated with like minded institutions like the Hindi Academy, Kendriya Hindi Sansthan (Agra), NCPUL and others in jointly organizing seminars on various themes, great poets and writers. They have been huge successes and won accolades from the academic community of other Universities. We have also been inviting contemporary writers and poets to our Department for "live" interaction with the students. We have also met with good response in this endeavor of ours and many well-known litterateurs have been visited the Department.

At the moment, department has five Professors who are sufficiently qualified with Doctoral and Post doctoral research experience. They have been guidingresearch for last many years. Our Professors have many significant research publications of High standard in Indian and Foreign Journals of repute and theyhave been active at International scenario as well. They very frequently attend International Conferences and Seminars. They are members of various nationaland international academic bodies and have been honored by international bodies. Among our Professors we have eminent writers and their works have been translated in many Indian and Foreign languages.

The Department of Hindi has Six Associate Professors. They have specialized in various areas of Hindi Literature and Media. There are five Asst. Professors inthe department who have already shown their worth in their respective research work of High quality.

The department of Hindi has not only been active in teaching Languages and literature in the University, it has played an important role in the dissemination ofHindi in the world. The faculty of the department has taken many assignments to teach Hindi to foreigners in Hungary, Poland, Russia, Koria and elsewhere. The scholars from Japan, Russia, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and many other countries have come to Jamia Millia Islamia to pursue their Higher Studies inHindi language and Literature.

The Department of Hindi from its inception has treated Hindi as an integrated, multifaceted and multidimensional subject, Hindi language and literature hasnever been treated as isolated identity. We have further plans to extend ourselves to fulfill the extended aura of language and literature.