Intent behind three-language policy is to 'ruin' Tamil: CM Stalin

Chennai: BJP-led Union Government’s intent behind pushing the three-language policy is to “ruin” Tamil language and Tamil Nadu’s rich culture, Chief Minister M K Stalin has said, while asserting that the state and its ruling DMK were ready to face another “language war” if it was forced on them.

In a social media post, Stalin justified defacing of Hindi letters on boards in railway stations and outside the offices of the Union Government across Tamil Nadu by supporters of the DMK in the past few days and attacked the BJP for their “love for Hindi.”

“Some BJP leaders in Tamil Nadu have raised an ‘intellectual’ question that how people from North India will know the name of the place or station if Hindi letters on station boards were defaced. They have displayed their loyalty to Hindi. By logic, they should have had such a concern for Tamil,” Stalin said.

“Let people (from North India) understand (the names of the stations/ towns) the way Tamils find them out when they travel to North Indian states,” the DMK President added. He was implying that tourists will have to be content with the names in English and not in their mother tongue, which is the case for South Indians travelling to North India.

Defacing Hindi letters isn’t new to Tamil Nadu as this has been the method used by protesters to show their opposition to “imposition” of the language ever since 1937, when the state witnessed its first anti-Hindi agitation. Railway stations, post offices, and other Central government offices have always been the target of protesters opposing Hindi.

Dwelling into the history of how Tamil Nadu opposed imposition of Hindi tooth and nail since the 1930s, Stalin said it was the then Justice Party chief A S Panneerselvam, Tamil poet Maraimalai Adigal, and Dravidian legend E V R Periyar who spearheaded the efforts to defeat the C Rajaji government’s decision to make Hindi compulsory in schools.

“We can understand the intent of the BJP government at the Centre to push the three-language formula is to ruin Tamil language and the rich culture of Tamils. If Tamil Nadu is vociferous in its opposition to imposition of Hindi, it is because of the strong foundation laid by leaders of the Dravidian movement almost a century ago,” Stalin added.

The statement by Stalin assumes significance as it comes in the wake of a running battle between the DMK dispensation and the Union Government on the latter’s insistence on the former implementing the National Education Policy 2020 and the three-language formula. Tamil Nadu, which formally adopted a two-language policy in 1968, has been opposed to the three-language formula as it maintains that learning Hindi was redundant as English is enough to communicate with the outside world.

“If another language war is imposed on us, let us enter the battleground by remembering the sacrifices of people who fought for our language. Let us make our voices heard on state’s rights and on the issue of language,” Stalin added.