LIC website goes all Hindi; Tamil parties decry it as 'blatant imposition'; company blames it on 'technical issue'

Chennai: Life Insurance Corporation of India was at the centre of a language row on Tuesday after its official website turned “all Hindi” without English on the home page with political parties in Tamil Nadu calling it blatant “imposition of Hindi.”

The website, which was revamped, read “all Hindi” with Hindi, not English, being set as default language. Even the option to change to English was in Hindi. Several social media users from Tamil Nadu pointed out the issue and sought to know whether LIC wasn’t willing to serve non-Hindi speakers.

From Chief Minister M K Stalin to Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami, almost every political leader in Tamil Nadu condemned the move and demanded that English be brough back immediately.

“The LIC website has been reduced to a propaganda tool for Hindi imposition. Even the option to select English is displayed in Hindi! This is nothing but cultural and language imposition by force, trampling on India's diversity. LIC grew with the patronage of all Indians,” Stalin said.

“How dare it betray the majority of its contributors? We demand an immediate rollback of this linguistic tyranny,” the CM added.

Palaniswami accused the BJP government of imposing Hindi wherever they could and derided the efforts to “impose one language” on a country that is as diverse as India. Within hours after the controversy erupted, the website’s default language was set as English.

Tamil Nadu opposes “imposition of Hindi” in every form and has been following a two-language formula of Tamil and English.

In response to the outrage, LIC has issued a statement addressing the issue.

“Our Corporate website licindia.in was not shuffling language pages due to some technical problem. The issue has been resolved, and the website is now available in both English and Hindi. We deeply regret any inconvenience caused,” the LIC said.