CM Stalin Issues A Caution Against Enforcing Hindi

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday criticised the reported recommendation of a Parliamentary Committee on Official Language to use Hindi as a medium of instruction in IITs, IIMs, and Central universities (in Hindi-speaking States and regional languages in other parts) and warned the Union government against starting another language war by imposing Hindi.

Mr. Stalin stayed that the Union administration should recognise all languages as official languages. He mentioned not to adopt a completely opposing stance and try to impose Hindi as a requirement in order to start another linguistic conflict with them and try not to put our affinity for our native tongue to the test.

He pleaded with the Central government to remove the idea to make Hindi necessary and maintain the flame of Indian unity, claiming that imposing a "impractical" proposal would only depict the Hindi-speaking population as Indian citizens and others as second-class citizens. He added that the idea of 'one nation' would impose threat to the integration through the various actions taken by the central government.

In addition, Mr. Stalin questioned the suggestion that English be dropped from the list of languages used in the recruitment process for positions in the Central services. He said that treating Hindi and other languages differently amounted to prejudice and would endanger the country's unity. According to Mr. Stalin, there are more people in India who do not speak Hindi than do.