CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, PMK founder S Ramadoss, MDMK general secretary Vaiko and many leaders on Tuesday took strong exception to the 'imposition of Hindi' on the web portal of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
Hashtag #StopHindiImposition is trending on social media as large number of people are opposing the Centre's move and expressing their resentment.
Hindi has been made the default language in the LIC portal and if a customer wishes to view the web portal in English, he/she has to specifically select from the language options.
However, the options are also displayed in Hindi.
Demanding the immediate rollback of this 'linguistic tyranny' with the hashtag #StopHindiImposition in his X handle, the CM said, "The LIC website has been reduced to a propaganda tool for Hindi imposition. Even the option to select English is displayed in Hindi! This is nothing but cultural and language imposition by force, trampling on India's diversity. LIC grew with the patronage of all Indians. How dare it betray the majority of its contributors?."
Strongly objecting the move, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, in his X handle said, "It is condemnable that the Central government is keen on imposing Hindi in all possible ways. India is a country marked by its diversity in terms of language, culture, politics etc., to impose uniformity is unacceptable. I urge the Central government to change the default language of the LIC web portal to English so that all can use it. Ialso urge it to not indulge in any activity to impose Hindi."
MDMK general secretary Vaiko in a statement said, "The Narendra Modi government has been brutally imposing Hindi. Sanskrit is being imposed through the National Educational Policy. The BJP government is forcibly imposing Hindi in All India Radio, and Doordarshan, naming the schemes of the union government in Hindi and Sanskrit, and rechristening the criminal laws in Hindi and Sanskrit. Making Hindi the default language of the LIC web portal is strongly condemnable."
PMK founder S Ramadoss, in his statement, said that changing the default language of the LIC web portal to Hindi is insulting the Tamil customers.
Following the uproar, the national insurer claimed that it was a "technical problem."
"Our corporate website was not shuffling the language page due to some technical problem. The issue is resolved now, and the website is available in English/Hindi language. Inconvenience caused is deeply regretted-Team LIC," the LIC India Forever said on its social media platform X.
As of now, LIC is India's largest insurance company with around 540 million policyholders, a sizeable number of them being from non-Hindi-speaking States.