Political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the ruling DMK, on Friday, condemned Union Minister Amit Shah’s statement that people of different states should communicate with each other in Hindi, saying it was nothing but an act of “imposition of Hindi.”
Kanimozhi, DMK women’s wing secretary and Lok Sabha MP from Thoothukudi, opposed Shah’s comments on Twitter by posting a terse counter. “Imposing a link language will not help unite the country but only help split. Union Government and Union Ministers should learn the history and sacrifices of the anti-Hindi agitation,” Kanimozhi wrote.
She was responding to a statement made by Shah at the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee. A statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs quoted Shah as saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official language, and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.
“Now the time has come to make the official language an important part of the unity of the country. When citizens of States who speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India,” Shah said on Thursday.
In a series of tweets, PMK founder S Ramadoss said Shah’s statement was shocking. “The meaning of his statement is that Hindi will be imposed on states. (Jawaharlal) Nehru accepted the demands of the non-Hindi speaking states and allowed English to continue as the link language,” he said.
If only an Indian language can be the “link language” only Tamil, being the oldest language, ticks the box, he said, adding that since Tamil Nadu does not believe in “imposition of any language”, the political parties demand all languages listed under the eighth schedule of Constitution be declared as official languages.
Shah’s statement led to intense criticism on Tamil Twitter with many “reminding” the Home Minister that Hindi is “just one of the official languages” of India. DMK, which was at the forefront of the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s and an issue that catapulted it to power, and other parties like AIADMK have been opposing the “imposition of Hindi” for the past several decades.
Shah’s statement also comes close on the heels of Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi “indirectly” batting for the introduction of Hindi in the state that has consistently opposed the language for decades together.
In his Republic Day message, Ravi had stressed that students from Tamil Nadu also learn other Indian languages like students in other states.
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