‘Hindi imperialism’: Opp reacts to Shah’s pitch for language

The Congress on Friday said the government was trying to divert attention from issues like price rise through such statements and argued that its attempt was to create mutual distrust.

“Now, the time has come to make the Official Language an important part of the unity of the country. When citizens of states who speak other languages communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India,” Shah was quoted by the Ministry of Home Affairs as having said at the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee on Thursday.

“Will your Hindi sermonising solve either inflation or unemployment. Your object is digression, diversion, derailing. Secondly, your objective is to create mutual distrust by imposition, by coercion,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said at a press conference. He said the Congress was a great supporter of Hindi, “but not of imposition, not of provocative politics, not of divisive politics”. “The three-language formula of the 60s has stood the test of time…,” he said.

His party colleague Jairam Ramesh tweeted, “Hindi imperialism will be the death knell for India. I’m very comfortable with Hindi, but I don’t want it rammed down anybody’s throat.”

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said Shah’s thrust on Hindi went against India’s ‘integrity and pluralism’. “The BJP top brass is continuously working towards causing damage to India’s pluralism. Does @AmitShah think that ‘Hindi state’ is enough and Indian states are not needed? You are making the same mistake again and again. However, you will not succeed!” Stalin tweeted.

West Bengal’s ruling TMC said any effort to impose Hindi by the BJP-led Centre on non-Hindi speaking states will be resisted. The TMC said Shah’s agenda of “one nation, one language, and one religion” will remain unfulfilled. “Even India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had said that Hindi will not be imposed on non-Hindi speaking states until they are willing to accept it,” senior TMC leader Sougata Roy said. Echoing him, TMC veteran Sukhendu Sekhar Ray said attempts to project Hindi as the national language is against the “spirit of the Constitution”.

Former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah accused the BJP of trying to unleash its agenda of “cultural terrorism” against non-Hindi speaking states. “As a Kannadiga, I take strong offence to @HMOIndia @AmitShah’s comment on Official language & medium of communication. Hindi is not our National Language & we will never let it to be,” Siddaramaiah tweeted. “Myopic view of BJP regarding our languages needs to be corrected and their opinions are derived from pseudo-nationalists like Savarkar,” he said.

(With PTI inputs)