Faced discrimination, ridicule for not knowing Hindi: H D Kumaraswamy

Joining the Hindi imposition row, former Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday said he along with his father, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, had faced discrimination and ridicule because they were not native speakers of the language. He said political leaders from the south were “snatched of their opportunities by Hindi politics and discrimination.”

Hindi politics, Kumaraswamy said, had prevented many South Indians like former Tamil Nadu chief ministers M Karunanidhi and K Kamaraj from becoming prime ministers.

"Though Deve Gowda was successful in breaking this barrier, there were several incidents of him being criticised and ridiculed for reasons of language," he said in his tweets.

The JD(S) leader said that he had similar experiences when he was a Lok Sabha member twice. "The ruling class ignores the South with disdain. I have seen from close quarters on how Hindi politicians manoeuvre. Most of them don't respect non-Hindi politicians," he said.

Kumaraswamy also criticised the 'clandestine' attempts of the central government to promote Hindi. "Centre says Hindi is one of the languages. But it is spending crores of rupees in India and abroad organising programmes to popularise Hindi. This is one of the clandestine programmes. It is possible to fight this only with prompt love and respect for each one's language," he said.

Linguistic discrimination has crept into public sector jobs too, he said, adding that candidates are forced to write exams in either English or Hindi. "There is no place for Kannada in this year's (IBPS) notification. Kannadigas are being denied of opportunities for getting jobs. This must stop," he added. IBPS is Institute of Banking Personnel Selection.