Amit Shah’s ‘shocking’ statement on Hindi will split, not unite, India: Tamil Nadu leaders

NEWS DESK: WORTHEUM: PUBLISHED BY, AMRENDRA PRATAP,10 Apr 2022,06:35AM IST

S Ramadoss, chief of the NDA ally Pattali Makkal Katchi, says English should remain as the link language and all the 22 languages in the Constitution’s eighth schedule should be declared official languages.

Kanimozhi; Amit Shah(WORTHEUM)

Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that people of different states should communicate with each other in Hindi was strongly condemned by political parties in Tamil Nadu on Friday. DMK MP Kanimozhi and S Ramadoss, founder of the NDA ally Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), were among those who took exception to the BJP leader’s remark.

At the 37th meeting of the Committee of Parliament on Official Language on Thursday, Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had decided that the medium of running the government should be the official language, and that this would 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 was quoted by the Ministry of Home Affairs as having said.

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Reacting to Shah’s statement, Kanimozhi, Lok Sabha MP from Thoothukudi, said, “Bringing the idea of one language will not help unite the nation but to split it. The Union government and ministers should be aware of the history of anti-Hindi agitations and the sacrifices made for that,” she said.

PMK leader Ramadoss said Shah’s statement was “shocking.” “It means nothing but Hindi imposition,” Ramadoss said. “Even as Hindi may be the language of majority states, Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the demands of the non-Hindi speaking states and allowed English to continue as the link language.”

If an Indian language should be the country’s official language, Tamil may be qualified for that position as it is the oldest language, he said. “However, Tamils do not believe in the imposition of one language, so political parties here demand all languages listed under the eighth schedule of the Constitution be declared official languages,” Ramadoss said. “English should remain as the link language, 22 languages including Tamil should be declared official languages, and people speaking different languages and their sentiments should be respected,” he said.

AMRENDRA PRATAP