CHENNAI: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s bilingual budget speech in English and Hindi for the first time came in for sharp criticism from those in Southern India with many viewing the move as “blatant form of imposition of Hindi.”
This is for the first time in the history of independent India that the finance minister presented the Budget in both English and Hindi. Though majority of the budget speech was made in English, there was stiff opposition even to some portions being read in Hindi.
Even before the Budget was presented by Jaitley in the Lok Sabha, the hash tag #Hindibudget began trending on micro-blogging site Twitter as reports suggested that the finance minister will make his speech in Hindi. As Jaitley began his speech in English, Twitter was abuzz with tweets that praised him for sticking with the tradition.
But, Jaitley got panned by Twitter users as he switched over to Hindi every now and then with many complaining that they did not get a word of the “Hindi bit” of the speech. Sources in Lok Sabha said this is the first time that Hindi found its way in the Budget speech, though some finance ministers had used some phrases or short poems in Hindi to drive home their point.
#Hindibudget was the hash tag that was used prominently by people from the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala to criticise the BJP Government for the “flawed decision.”
Ramachandra Maharudrappa, whose profile says he is a proud Kannadiga, wrote on his page that Jaitley has set another bad precedent.
“This Hindi budget is further going to damage the federal structure of the union. The message from the centre is loud and clear. Learn Hindi or else you have no stake in India
#HindiBudget,” Maharudrappa wrote on Twitter. Some also saw the Budget speech in Hindi as way of infringing upon state autonomy.
“Government wants non Hindi states income but don’t want our languages, how long these people want to treat Hindi as superior over others, day by day federal unity getting weaker in the country
#HindiBudget,” Rakshith J. Gowda wrote on his Twitter page.
