Kerala leaders disagree with Shah's view on Hindi

Even as Kerala did not witness any violent reaction to Union Home Minister Amit Shah's call to promote Hindi as the nation's common language, political and cultural leaders strongly disagreed with the view.

Kerala Cultural Affairs Minister and CPM central committee member A K Balan told DH that any attempt to impose any language on the people could not be accepted as it was against the nation's diversity.

The BJP might be mooting such ideas with political motives. But language is a sensitive issue and hence should be dealt with carefully. All people should be allowed to follow their mother tongue, he said.

AICC general secretary and former chief minister Oommen Chandy said that there was no need for any fresh debates on languages as it was a well settled matter.

He also said that Kerala was a state that welcomed three language policy and people of Kerala loved all languages.

Hence there were no aggressive reactions in the state against Amit Shah's statement in favour of Hindi.

Chandy abstained from further comments on the merits of Amit Shah's views citing that the party national leaders would comment.

Noted poet in Kerala and Padma award winner Sugathakumari told DH that the concept of one nation, one language would not be ideal for a country like India where all regional languages attain utmost significance and need to be given due importance.

"Hindi obviously is a well accepted language in India. But can't agree with making it nation's common langauge," she said.

Meanwhile, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan backed the idea of one common language.

In a tweet, Khan, who recently took over as Governor, said that, "A language inspires and unites people. Let us strengthen our unity through Hindi, our national language. Along with our mother tongue, let us use Hindi in our work."

This triggered criticisms and many even tended to correct the Governor that Hindi was not the national language but an official language only.