The public sector insurance company issued a 31-point, five-page circular to its employees on the use of Hindi.
MK Stalin. (Twitter)
Imposition of Hindi — #HindiImposition — in the deep South is yet again in the news.
After recent tussles over a Central directive asking milk federations to call curd by the Hindi word “dahi” — with the local word for it in brackets next to it — and the since-withdrawn decision to conduct CRPF constable recruitment test only in Hindi and English, it was the turn of a public sector insurance company to bear the brunt of the ire of South Indian regional parties.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday, 12 June, described as “unjust” a circular on the use of Hindi issued by The New India Assurance company.
The DMK chief, who has repeatedly sparred with the Union government over the imposition of Hindi on states with vibrant and thriving languages, posted the circular on his Twitter handle and said while each and every citizen contributed to the nation’s development, the Union government and its institutions continued to give “undue and unfair” advantage to Hindi over other Indian languages in every possible way.
The chief minister said the Union government was intent on spending its valuable resources on “imposing Hindi down our throats”, rather than for public welfare.
“Latest in this list is the unjust circular issued by New India Assurance. It must be withdrawn with immediate effect and its Chairperson Neerja Kapur needs to apologise for the disrespect shown towards non-Hindi speakers of India and non-Hindi speaking employees of New India Assurance.”
Stalin said gone were the days of non-Hindi speaking citizens of India tolerating the “second-class treatment” meted out to them despite their contribution in propelling India’s growth with their hard work and talent.
“Tamil Nadu and DMK will do everything under our power to Stop Hindi Imposition, as we have always strived in our history. We will remove the undeserving special status that Hindi enjoys everywhere in the Union government, like Railways, Postal Department, Banking and Parliament that affects us and our people on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
“We pay our taxes, contribute to the progress and believe in our rich heritage and this nation’s diversity. Our languages deserve to be treated equally. We will resist any attempt to replace Tamil with Hindi in our land,” he added.
The New India Assurance five-page circular was titled “Checkpoints for Hindi implementation” and detailed how Hindi must be prioritised in accordance with Section 3(3) of the Official Languages Act, 1963.
It was this Act that set off the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu, which was spearheaded by Stalin’s late father and former chief minister M Karunanidhi, forcing the Union government to postpone its decision to phase out English, replacing it with Hindi.
In its defence, The New India Assurance tweeted: “@NewIndAssurance specifically mentioned under point 25 that all advertisements, tenders and press releases to be published in newspapers in English, Hindi and regional languages as done by any other Public Sector Organisations of India. We respect all regional languages.”
However, the company ignored all the others in the circular that has 31 points, most of them speaking of how Hindi needs to be prioritised.
In March, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) drew strong criticism from several quarters — including the Tamil Nadu and the Karnataka governments — over the changing of the word “curd” to “dahi” on curd packets of state-run cooperative milk societies.
As per a notification dated 10 March, the FSSAI recommended using the word “dahi“, instead of curd, followed by the common regional name in brackets.
“Dahi can be labelled as per following examples: Dahi (Curd), Dahi (Mosaru), Dahi (Zaamut daud), Dahi (Tayir), Dahi (Tair), Dahi (Perugu), etc., based on the regional nomenclature used in different states for Dahi,” the old notification read.
The FSSAI withdrew the notification on 30 March.
In April, it was Telangana IT and Urban Affairs Minister KT Rama Rao who wrote to the Union Home Minister Amit Shah asking him include Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and other official languages in the CRPF recruitment notification so that youth studying in regional languages get equal opportunities without any discrimination.
This hurts lakhs of aspirants whose first language is not Hindi and provides an undue advantage to those who are well-versed in that language, Rama Rao said, with other southern leaders such as Siddaramaiah lending their voice to the protest.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), had, on 5 April, issued a notification for the post of 1,29,929 constables.
(With inputs from PTI)
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