Kanimozhi alleges Hindi imposition at Chennai Airport

DMK MP Kanimozhi on Sunday said that a CISF officer posted at the airport here sought to know whether she was an “Indian” for not knowing Hindi, triggering yet another debate on “Hindi imposition” in institutions and installations managed by the Centre in non-Hindi speaking states.

The incident took place on Sunday afternoon when Kanimozhi was at the domestic terminal of the airport to board a flight to New Delhi. As Kanimozhi narrated the incident on her verified Twitter page, #HindiImposition hashtag became the flavour on the micro-blogging site with hundreds of users supporting the MP and questioning the “insistence on one language.”

“Today at the airport a CISF officer asked me if ‘I am an Indian’ when I asked her to speak to me in Tamil or English as I did not know Hindi. I would like to know from when being Indian is equal to knowing Hindi. #Hindiimposition,” Kanimozhi wrote.

As the incident stoked a row with many seeking explanations from the agency, CISF said it has ordered an enquiry into the matter. “It is not the policy of CISF to insist upon any particular language,” the CISF said.

Kanimozhi’s allegations of “Hindi imposition” comes close on the heels of the DMK viewing the three- language policy proposed in the New Education Policy (NEP) as an attempt to bring Sanskrit via the “back door.”

DMK, which was at the forefront of the anti-Hindi agitation in the 1960s and came to power in 1967 riding high on the wave, has been consistent in its stand on “Hindi imposition” as language is a highly emotive issue in Tamil Nadu.

After landing in Delhi, Kanimozhi told DH that the incident took place at the security area of the airport when an officer was making an announcement in Hindi.

“I told the officer that not everyone knows Hindi and that the announcement should be in a language that people understand here (in Chennai). That is when she asked me whether I was an Indian. I did tell her this was not the way to talk and I still do not understand the connection between me not knowing Hindi and me being an Indian,” Kanimozhi added.

As a damage-control exercise, CISF officials met Kanimozhi at the Delhi airport immediately after she got out of the aircraft and promised action.

“The officials told me that it is not the policy of the CISF to insist on any language and promised that action will be taken. The DIG, CISF from Chennai Airport also spoke to me over the phone and promised action,” Kanimozhi added.

Quoting Kanimozhi’s tweet, several people took to Twitter to narrate their experiences of being told to learn Hindi by CISF personnel at airports and how “Hindi is being imposed” quietly on people from non-Hindi speaking states.

“If this is the treatment an MP and daughter of an ex-CM gets in India, imagine the plight of ordinary non-Hindi speaking people. #HindiImposition is a pandemic. Non-Hindi speakers from all over the country must fight tooth and nail to stop this inhuman imposition,” Amarnath Shivashankar, who tweets via @Amara_Bengaluru, wrote.