DMK ups its ‘anti-Hindi’ stance, to organise meetings across Tamil Nadu on November 4

The decision comes weeks after the party’s youth wing, led by Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi, organised a protest in Chennai against continued imposition of Hindi by the Centre

Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is upping its ante against the alleged “Hindi imposition” by the Union government. After passing a resolution in the Assembly against a recommendation to make Hindi the medium of instruction in all central institutes, the DMK has now decided to take the emotive issue to the people.

The party will organise massive public meetings in over 70 locations across the state on November 4 to “explain the anti-Hindi imposition resolution” with Chief Minister and DMK President M K Stalin himself participating in the meeting at Perambalur, 280 km southwest of Chennai.

The decision comes weeks after the party’s youth wing, led by Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi, organised a protest in Chennai against the continued imposition of Hindi by the Centre.

The protest on November 4 comes at a time the opposition parties, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party, are accusing the DMK government of failing on the law-and-order front in the wake of an LPG cylinder blast inside a car in Coimbatore killing the occupant instantly.

An announcement by the DMK said Stalin was the first chief minister in the country to have raised his voice against the recommendations of a Parliamentary Committee, headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, that proposed Hindi as the medium of instruction in central institutes. “Stalin got a resolution passed against the recommendations in the Assembly which also urged the Centre not to accept the proposals of the committee,” the DMK said.

The public meetings, the party said, will be addressed by senior party leaders, ministers, MPs, MLAs, and speakers. They will “explain the Assembly resolution” to the people, the party’s announcement said.

DMK, which came to power in 1967 riding high on the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu, has never missed an opportunity to “oppose Hindi imposition”, especially after the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014. It was under the DMK government that the state formally adopted a two-language formula–Tamil and English.

The party feels the language issue is still a “live wire” in Tamil Nadu and that there is “nothing wrong” in reflecting the sentiments of the people who it says are still against “imposition” of any language, more so Hindi.

“One of the principles of our party is opposing Hindi imposition. How can someone ask us not to protest when the language is being given utmost importance at the cost of regional languages? The BJP wants only one language (Hindi) to prevail in India and we won’t allow that to happen. The issue is political, and our response has to be political,” a senior leader told DH.

Not just the language issue, the alleged infringement on state’s rights is also another major complaint that the DMK has with the BJP – both issues have been reflecting in elections since 2019.

The BJP, which often gets the brickbat on Hindi imposition, has been blaming the DMK for “resorting to” language politics whenever the party faces a crisis. The national party feels the DMK is now taking up the issue in a big way only to “divert the attention from its failures.” This time, ally AIADMK also joined the BJP in criticising the DMK on the issue, saying it was a diversionary tactic.