CHENNAI/KOCHI/HYDERABAD: Protests have intensified in southern states over Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that people of different States should communicate with each other in Hindi, and not English.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday said the move to impose Hindi cannot be accepted. India is a country known for its unity in diversity and the Sangh Parivar’s agenda was not to recognise this diversity, he said. “It’s part of their agenda to weaken the regional languages,” he added.
“Such moves will create dangerous situations in the country… It will hamper the unity and integrity of the nation,” the Kerala CM warned.
Taking exception to Shah’s comments, Telangana minister K T Rama Rao said “language chauvinism and hegemony” in the country will boomerang. It would be a “great disservice to impose Hindi” on the nation’s youngsters who have global aspirations, he added.
Even BJP ally AIADMK opposed Shah’s suggestion, with party coordinator and former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam saying the language cannot be foisted. Quoting Dravidian icon C N Annadurai, he said people could learn Hindi voluntarily if they wished to, but the imposition of the language could not be accepted. The two-language formula had been in vogue in Tamil Nadu for a long time, and when the National Educational Policy was introduced, the AIADMK had clarified that it was firm on the two-language policy, he added.
MDMK general secretary Vaiko said Shah’s remarks indicated that the BJP-led Central government has decided to intensify the imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking people. Recalling the anti-Hindi agitations in 1938 and 1965, Vaiko warned, “If the country’s diverse nature is destabilised by destroying the unique identities of various ethnic groups of India, it will become another Soviet Union.”
Earlier, Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin had said the idea would wreck the nation’s integrity. An image posted by music composer A R Rahman on Tamil language has ignited an animated debate in the social media, too. The image’s caption ‘Tamizhanangu’ was an obvious pointer to an invocation song to ‘mother Tamil’. While a section of netizens lauded Rahman saying his image and caption denoted opposition to Hindi and full support to Tamil, others questioned the move.