CHENNAI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah's statement that Hindi must be finally accepted by all States without opposition was slammed by leaders of several political parties in Tamil Nadu starting from Chief Minister M K Stalin, who told Shah that it would be an unwise move to ignite the embers of the ‘1965 Anti-Hindi Agitations,’ to Dr S Ramadoss, founder of the PMK that is now in an alliance with the BJP.
Strongly denouncing Shah’s audacious push for Hindi acceptance at the 38th meeting of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language on Friday, Stalin, in a tweet, called it a blatant attempt to subjugate non-Hindi speakers, adding: ‘Our language and heritage define us – we won’t be enslaved by Hindi.’
While Tamil Nadu rejected any form of Hindi hegemony and imposition, many States like Karnataka and West Bengal, too, had been vehemently resisting Hindi imposition, he said, urging Amit Shah to ‘please take heed of the growing resistance.’
State Minister for Sports Development and Youth Welfare, Udhayanidhi Stalin, said ‘Tamil Nadu has a history of resisting Hindi imposition and it will firmly reject all the autocratic moves of fascists.’
Condemning Shah’s statement advocating compulsory acceptance of Hindi, he said in a Tweet that the undemocratic stance disregarded the rich linguistic diversity of the Indian Union. ‘Superficial praise for Tamil in Tamil Nadu, alongside imperialist pro-Hindi statements from North India exposes BJP’s double standards,’ he said.
Ramadoss made it clear that attempts to impose Hindi would not succeed anytime and that such attempts would be defeated as they had been in the past. Though his party is in an alliance with the BJP, Ramadoss said that none of the States, where the people do not speak Hindi, was keen on accepting Hindi and Shah’s statement would point to the ruling dispensation’s plan to create a situation like that.
Referring to Shah’s remark that Hindi was not in competition with any ‘local language,’ Ramadoss challenged him to announce all the languages mentioned in Schedule Eight of the Constitution as official languages if he really was confident of Hindi triumphing over the other languages.
If all the languages were accorded official language status, the best language with a rich literature and sound grammar would gain the acceptance of the people and let the Union Government do that, he said.
CPM State secretary K Balakrishnan objected to the use of the word ‘local language’ to define the national languages of the country by Amit Shah. He said there were 22 languages in the eighth schedule and they were all national languages.
He said no attempt to use Hindi as a political weapon or to destroy the plurality of the nation would be allowed, Balakrishnan said.
