Earlier when DMK MP Kanimozhi disclosed a CISF official at Chennai airport had asked her if “she was an Indian” as the DMK leader could not speak Hindi sparked controversy and non Hindi speaking Indians waging a war against Hindi Imposition at large in social media
Language politics has always been a sensitive and emotive issue in Tamil Nadu where the new education policy has also been adding up a controversy of late .
The proposed implementation of a three-language formula in schools – two of which should be native – was met with particularly strong opposition in Tamil Nadu, which has always resisted the “imposition” of Hindi.
Many argue that Sanskrit is the root of many Indian languages and hence should be learnt by all. Tamil is a language with grammar even before birth of christ and oldest than Sanskrit and it is the mother of current Dravidian languages in South India .
In the 1960s, there was a massive anti-Hindi agitation in the state when the then Congress government attempted to make Hindi the official language. This had catapulted the DMK to power in Tamil Nadu.
Former Union finance minister P Chidambaram of the Congress also tweeted in support of Kanimozhi, noting that her experience was not unusual.
“If the Central government is genuinely committed to both Hindi and English being the official languages of India, it must insist that all central government employees are bilingual in Hindi and English. Non-Hindi speaking recruits to central government posts quickly learn functional, spoken Hindi.
Why cannot Hindi speaking recruits to central government posts learn functional, spoken English?” he asked.
Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Karti P Chidambaram, Su Thirunavukkarasar, Manickam Tagore also backed Kanimozhi.
[splco_spacer]
Former Chief Justice Chennai Court and SC judge Markandey been lambasted for his support for Hindi
[splco_spacer]
TMC Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra, supporting Kanimozhi, charged that the “BJP treasury benches define Indianness by their own narrow parameters of homogeneity.”
“To see this @BJP myopia spread beyond Parliament & into the streets only tells me how important it is for us to continue to stand straight & fight this,” she said on Twitter.
[splco_spacer]
[splco_spacer]
The former Chief Minister of Karnataka, HD Kumaraswamy has reacted to the incident and has come out in support of Kanimozhi. He took to Twitter to express his opinion in multiple tweets. He said,
“I raise my voice against the insult meted to sister Kanimozhi. Hindi politics has prevented many South Indians from becoming Prime Minister HD Devegowda, Karunanidhi and Kamaraj are prominent. Though Deve Gowda was successful in breaking into this barrier, there were several incidents of him being criticized and ridiculed for reasons of language.”
Thank you Thirumati @KanimozhiDMK for raising this issue. We Bengalis are with you on this. We condemn this #HindiImposition by @CISFHQrs officer.
Why is @BJP4India getting jittery on this? Is it because #HindiImposition is their ideology?
Velga Tamil. Joy Bangla.✊ https://t.co/V4OpbCW5wN
— Nilanjan Das (@NilanjanDasAITC) August 9, 2020
DMK president MK Stalin on Monday took umbrage over the incident in which his sister and party MP Kanimozhi was asked by a CISF official if “she was an Indian” as she could not speak Hindi, asking if knowing that language was the ‘yardstick’ of being an Indian.
[splco_quote]”Is Hindi the yardstick for being an Indian. Is this India or Hindia?” the DMK chief angrily asked in a tweet.[/splco_quote]
Stalin, whose party, as a policy, is opposed to the “imposition” of Hindi for decades, further said in the tweet that those trying to “bury pluralism” will get “buried.”
[splco_spacer]
Kanimozhi MP in her tweet message thanked CISF for taken investigation and also thanked all supporters for Regional language cause
