Members of Parliament and political leaders from Tamil Nadu on Saturday demanded action against Union AYUSH Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha for “imposing Hindi” on doctors from the state by asking them to leave a conference he was addressing if they did not know Hindi.
The incident, which took place on Thursday on the last day of a three-day training session for “Master Trainers of Yoga”, has led to outrage in Tamil Nadu with political leaders like DMK President M K Stalin calling it “blatant imposition of Hindi” on non-Hindi speaking states.
Two MPs – Kanimozhi from DMK and S Jothimani from Congress – wrote to Union AYUSH Minister Shripad Yesso Naik seeking “appropriate action” against officials responsible for the incident and ensuring that English is also used in future training sessions.
Kotecha says “hooligans” disrupted the training
On his part, Kotecha told a television channel that there was “some manipulation” in the video clip released by the doctors and alleged that “some hooligans entered the meeting and shouted that I should speak only in Hindi when I was making my speech in both English and Hindi.”
“The entire video is in the public domain and people can watch. I spoke in both languages in the conference,” Kotecha said. A doctor who attended the three-day virtual conference told DH that the ministry sent out invites for participants to join the meeting for the first two days, while it streamed the event on the last day on its social media handles.
The doctors from Tamil Nadu said they were told to leave the conference if they did not know Hindi, adding that their repeated requests to the organisers to speak in English fell into deaf ears. As many as 37 doctors from Tamil Nadu participated in the online training session.
Political parties demand action against officials
In a statement, Stalin demanded “strict action” against Kotecha and said such incidents reflect the BJP Government’s plans to impose Hindi using officials.
“The Prime Minister should ensure that such incidents do not recur in the future. Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Edappadi K Palaniswami, should write a letter to the Prime Minister asking him to ensure that the link language of English should be used in such conferences to enable people from non-Hindi states also understand,” Stalin said in the statement.
PMK founder S Ramadoss sought to know what would have been the response from participants if a trainer had said he can only speak in Tamil, while Makkal Needhi Maiam president Kamal Haasan said no one should forget that it is “Indian government and not Hindian government.”
Ramadoss also demanded that it was time for all 22 Indian languages be made into official languages. The doctors also released a video of the programme in which Kotecha, who made lateral entry into government service after heading the Gujarat Ayurveda University in Jamnagar, is seen telling the participants he does not speak English “very well.”
MPs write to AYUSH Minister
DMK MP Kanimozhi, who had on August 9 complained that a CISF personnel at the airport asked her if she was an Indian for not knowing Hindi, demanded that Kotecha be placed under suspension and appropriate disciplinary proceedings be initiated.
“The statement of the Secretary that non-Hindi speaking participants could leave during a Ministry’s training session speaks volumes about the Hindi domination being imposed. This is highly condemnable. The Government should place the Secretary under suspension and initiate appropriate disciplinary proceedings. How long is this attitude of excluding non-Hindi speakers to be tolerated?” she asked.
Congress MPs from Tamil Nadu, Karti P Chidambaram and Manicka Tagore, also condemned the incident seeking to know whether the government was moving towards one language policy.
“Not knowing English is understandable, but this arrogance of asking those who do not know Hindi to leave and insisting on speaking in Hindi is totally unacceptable,” Karti tweeted.
Tagore wrote on Twitter: “It is a condemnable action by a Secretary of GoI. Will raise it in the Parliament for sure. Will @PMOIndia act? Or it all started with the Mindset of RSS back thinking of One Nation, One Religion, One language Government?”