Tamils erupt over impose Hindi' bid

Chennai: Political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the DMK, on Saturday strongly opposed the three-language formula’s continuation with add-on features proposed in the draft National Education Policy (NEP) alleging it was tantamount to “thrusting” Hindi and wanted it junked.

Warning the Central government against attempts to “impose” Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states, Tamil leaders denounced the Kasturirangan committee’s draft NEP recommending implementation of a uniform three-language policy throughout the country that would entail teaching Hindi from pre-school upwards as “highly divisive and ahistorical”.

Twitter was also flooded with messages protesting the draft education policy submitted to the new government at the Centre on Friday.

Tamils oppose bid to impose Hindi #StopHindiImposition, #TNAgainstHindiImposition trended throughout the day on the microblogging site.

The committee’s report is “truly shocking”, a dangerous bid to belittle other classical Indian languages like Tamil in the guise of “teaching Sanskrit the easy way”, said DMK president M.K. Stalin, warning that DMK MPs will take up this issue in the very first session of the new Lok Sabha starting June 17.

Seeking to cool frayed tempers, the Tamil Nadu government said it would continue with the two-language formula.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, who had constituted the panel when he was HRD minister in the previous Narendra Modi government, also clarified that the NEP committee has only prepared a draft report and no decision has been taken on implementing it.

However, the storm over the draft NEP showed no signs of weakening.

Recalling the anti-Hindi agitations beginning as early as 1937 in Tamil Nadu, Mr Stalin said since 1968 the state is following the two-language formula of learning only Tamil and English.

“The proposal is a threat to national integration and a move that will again put people’s linguistic sentiments in non-Hindi speaking states on the boil decades after the linguistic re-organisation of states,” he said, urging the BJP government to immediately reject the Kasturirangan panel report.

In Tiruchy, DMK Rajya Sabha MP Tiruchy Siva warned that the Centre’s move to make learning of Hindi compulsory in schools will meet with a severe backlash through another anti-Hindi stir in Tamil Nadu witnessed during 1964-65.

Congress leader P. Chidambaram in a series of tweets in Tamil said, “What is the meaning of three-language formula in schools? The meaning is they will make Hindi a compulsory subject...”

In another tweet, he said, “If Hindi language is a compulsory subject its import is imposition of Hindi.”

“The BJP government’s real face is beginning to emerge,” he tweeted.