After row over 'No Malayalam', Delhi hospital withdraws circular

Malayalam is as Indian as any other Indian language, said Rahul Gandhi

A Delhi government-run hospital on Sunday withdrew an order asking its nurses not to speak in Malayalam at work within 24 hours, as a controversy erupted over the direction that attracted criticism from across the political spectrum.

On Saturday, the Nursing Superintendent issued an order saying a complaint has been received regarding the use of Malayalam for communication at the hospital where "maximum patients and colleagues do not know this language and feel helpless causing a lot of inconvenience".

"So it is directed to all nursing personnel to use only Hindi and English for communication otherwise serious action will be taken," the order said.

However as the hospital faced flak, the Medical Superintendent of the hospital issued another order, which said the direction was issued by the Nursing Superintendent "without any instructions or knowledge" of the hospital administration and Delhi government. The order "stands withdrawn, with immediate effect", it added.

Read | Delhi govt hospital bars nurses from talking in Malayalam at work, union fumes

The G B Pant Nurses' Association said there are around 850 nurses out of which around 400 belong to Kerala. Last year, the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences had also issued an order advising staff that regional languages should not be spoken in its premises.

The Saturday's order attracted huge criticism with leading politicians like Rahul Gandhi, Sitaram Yechury, Jairam Ramesh and Shashi Tharoor coming out against the order. BJP's Tom Vadakkan also found fault with the order.

"Malayalam is as Indian as any other Indian language. Stop language discrimination!" former Congress president Rahul tweeted.

CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said, "What a joke! Unacceptable. No language can be banned from usage anywhere in India as long as the people conversing understand it. This must be reversed immediately."

Soon after the order was withdrawn, Tharoor tweeted, "A small victory for decency and common sense over parochialism and bigotry!!"

Earlier he had said, "it boggles the mind that in democratic India a government institution can tell its nurses not to speak in their mother tongue to others who understand them. This is unacceptable, crude, offensive and a violation of the basic human rights of Indian citizens. A reprimand is overdue!"

Congress' Rajya Sabha Chief Whip Ramesh, who was one of the first to react on the issue on Saturday, tweeted, "Absolutely, totally bizarre! This is unconstitutional, really..."

In a statement, Vadakkan targeted the Arvind Kejriwal government and said the "withdrawal in a haste clearly indicates we have an anarchist state government for whom the constitution of India and its recognized language do not matter".

"It is an irony that when this government was in need of oxygen the request was directed to Kerala and now their attempt to snatch the right to speak in Malayalam amongst each other. Globally the largest number of nurses come from Kerala, they have served our country as frontline workers along with doctors and other paramedics. They suffered casualties along with doctors and paramedics too. I am also surprised at the deafening silence so far from the Kerala government," he added.