CHENNAI: Political parties in Tamil Nadu, including BJP allies PMK and MDMK, fumed at Centre’s move to give prominence to Hindi on social media on Friday.
Expressing his displeasure over the Centre’s move, PMK founder S Ramadoss said time and again, there had been attempts to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking people. Recalling the anti-Hindi agitations in 1938 and 1965, Ramadoss said, “Now the Central government is making an attempt to ‘soft launch’ imposition of Hindi through the social media.”
The PMK founder said each and every national race has its own language, culture and other identities. As such, imposition of Hindi can’t be accepted.
Further, the statement of a Union Minister that the use of Hindi would be encouraged in all departments has increased the fear about the imposition of Hindi among the people of non-Hindi speaking people.
Recalling that former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee had agreed in 1998 to consider the demand for making all languages in Schedule VIII of Constitution as the official languages, Ramadoss said the BJP’s manifesto for the 2014 LS polls had promised to work for the growth of all Indian languages. He said the BJP government should announce all 22 languages as official languages and put a full stop to the controversy. Expressing shock at the Centre’s move, MDMK general secretary Vaiko said the attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking States would be against the spirit of national integration.
Meanwhile, in Delhi, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram cautioned the BJP government over its move.