Udhayanidhi Stalin slammed the statement of the Union minister and said Hindi was spoken only in five states.
Udhayanidhi Stalin. (UdhayStalin/ X)
Tamil Nadu Sports and Youth Welfare Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Thursday, 14 September, condemned Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his statement that Hindi was the uniting force in India.
“I strongly condemn the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah claiming that Hindi is the uniting force of India and it is empowering other regional languages,” he wrote on X.
In a message on the occasion of “Hindi Diwas”, Shah also said Hindi has never competed nor will compete with any other Indian language and that a strong country will emerge only by strengthening all its languages.
The Union home minister expressed confidence that Hindi would become a medium to empower all local languages.
However, Udhayanidhi Stalin slammed the statement of the Union minister and said Hindi was spoken only in “four or five” states.
“Hindi is spoken only in four or five states in the country and hence the statement of Amit Shah is totally absurd. It is only another version of imposing Hindi under the guise of generating livelihood,” he said.
“While we are speaking Tamil here, Kerala speaks Malayalam. Where does Hindi merge with and empower us? Amit Shah should stop oppressing non-Hindi languages by calling them just regional languages. #StopHindiImposition,” Udhayanidhi Stalin added.
I strongly condemn the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah claiming that Hindi is the uniting force of India and it is empowering other regional languages.
Hindi is spoken only in four or five states in the Country and hence the statement of Amit Shah is totally absurd.…
— Udhay (@Udhaystalin) September 14, 2023
The leaders of the southern states, especially the DMK in Tamil Nadu, have long been vocal against attempts by the Union government to impose Hindi across the country.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin had accused the BJP-led Centre of being “brazen” over the “imposition” of Hindi and asserted that his party, the ruling DMK, would continue to resist any attempts to force the language upon the people or the state.
In a message on the occasion of “Hindi Diwas”, Shah also said Hindi has never competed nor will compete with any other Indian language and that a strong country will emerge only by strengthening all its languages.
“India has been a country of diverse languages. Hindi unites the diversity of languages in the world’s largest democracy.
“Hindi has been a democratic language. It has honoured different Indian languages and dialects as well as many global languages and adopted their vocabularies, sentences and grammar rules,” Shah said.
He said the Hindi language has played an unprecedented role in uniting the country during the difficult days of freedom struggle and instilled a feeling of unity in a country that has several languages and dialects.
He said the movements for achieving “Swaraj” and “Swabhasha” were going on simultaneously in the country.
Considering the important role of Hindi in the freedom movement and after independence, the architects of the Constitution accepted it as the official language on 14 September 1949, the home minister said, adding that a country’s original and creative expression is possible only through its own language.
Shah said all Indian languages and dialects are the country’s cultural heritage, which has to be carried forward.
Shah said the Department of Official Language of the Ministry of Home Affairs is making continuous efforts, by leveraging modern technology, to enrich the Indian languages to establish those as languages of public administration, education and scientific use.
The home minister pointed out that the principle of language change says “language moves from complexity to simplicity”.
He said in his opinion, simple and clear Hindi words should be used in office work.
Shah said the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language was constituted to periodically review the work done in the country’s official language.
It was given the responsibility to review the progress made in the use of Hindi in government work across the country prepare its report and present it to the president, he added.
Shah said India has also taken initiatives to promote the use of Hindi in the United Nations (UN).
He said a new tradition of organising the “All India Official Language Conference” has also been started by the Department of Official Language.
In a similar move in October last year, a parliamentary panel on official language, led by Shah pushed for Hindi in various fields, especially in education and Union government jobs, prompting the DMK to hit the streets.
During the protest, Udhayanidhi Stalin had warned that the protests would not be confined to Tamil Nadu, and would even be taken to New Delhi if the Union government continued to attempt to impose Hindi across the country.
“One of the main principles of the DMK is to oppose the imposition of Hindi. At no cost will we move away from that or give up on our ideology. Whichever route you take to sneak Hindi into Tamil Nadu, we just have one thing to say: ‘Hindi Theriyadhu, Poda’ (We don’t know Hindi. Go away). The people of Tamil Nadu will chase away the fascist BJP in the 2024 general elections, just like they did in 2019,” he said.
(With PTI inputs)
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