Raking up the Hindi vs Tamil debate on the Republic Day, Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin claimed that Hindi has become a language that swallows many mother tongues, drawing sharp reactions from the BJP.
Speaking at a meeting by the Chennai North-East District DMK, Udhayanidhi claimed that Tamils hold a unique place in world history for having laid down their lives to protect their mother tongue.
"Several mother tongues once spoken in states such as Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh gradually declined after the introduction of Hindi. Hindi has become a language that swallows many mother tongues," he said.
The TN deputy CM observed that this is the reason Tamil Nadu has consistently opposed Hindi imposition and added that many other states are now beginning to follow Tamil Nadu’s stand on language rights.
"Tamil Nadu would strongly oppose Hindi imposition, the New Education Policy, and any other form of coercion by the Union government," news agency ANI quoted him as saying.
Backing Udhayanidhi's comments, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai said, "Odia, Bihari, Rajasthani, Gujarati; they had rich literature, but after adopting Hindi, they are nowhere; they are not as influential as they used to be. This is the reason why we oppose Hindi imposition because it makes everybody a second-class citizen, and it takes away the cultural identity of a certain section of people, and that is the reason we opposed it, and there was a violent past to it."
From naming the central government schemes and policies to naming laws in Hindi, the BJP is imposing Hindi in every possible way, he alleged.
Annadurai claimed that they are using the short form BNSS because they are unable to pronounce the entire name.
"For the Union government jobs, they are using only English and Hindi as the optional languages. Effectively shutting out people who know only their mother tongue, especially people who know only Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada or Tamil. We are fighting against that," he said, according to ANI.
Hitting out at the DMK and strongly condemning the remarks, Union minister L. Murugan claimed that Udhayanidhi and his family always talk about a separate country state, and a separate language.
Claiming that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does everything to promote Tamil, he said, "He is organising the Kashi Tamil Sangamam, and wherever he goes, he talks about Tamil literature... but the DMK government has failed, and while they always claim to be the protectors of the Tamil language, they do nothing for the Tamil people."
He further alleged this was a false propaganda of DMK as students from Tamil Nadu go to AIIMS Bhopal, AIIMS Rishikesh, and other AIIMS across the country and sought an apology from Udhayanidhi over his remarks.
