Udhayanidhi Stalin warns of protests in Delhi against Hindi imposition

CHENNAI: DMK youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin on Saturday warned that the party would not confine its protests to Tamil Nadu but would even take it to capital Delhi if the Union government revived its attempts to impose Hindi in the state.
“The people of Tamil Nadu will never accept the imposition of Hindi language. They will chase away the fascist BJP in 2024 general elections like how they did in 2019,” he said.
He was speaking at an agitation organised by the youth wing and the students wing of the ruling DMK against the recommendations of Union home minister Amit Shah-led committee of parliament on official language. The recommendations included replacement of English with Hindi as the medium of instruction in all technical or non-technical educational institutions of the Union government.
The state-wide agitation in the district headquarters saw the DMK MPs and MLAs taking part.
Leading the agitation near Valluvar Kottam, Udhayanidhi said the huge agitation organised by the party had caught the attention of Delhi. “This anti-Hindi agitation is a great start for the LS poll campaign,” he said, recalling the recent protests in West Bengal, where the members of the organisations held aloft the photographs of late TN chief ministers C N Annadurai and M Karunanidhi and those of chief minister M K Stalin.
The DMK also made viral the hashtag --StopHindiImposition –in social media on Saturday.
The DMK MLA said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah should not consider the DMK government as that of the previous AIADMK regime. Chief minister M K Stalin was neither Edappadi K Palaniswami nor O Panneerselvam ((former chief ministers) .
“We only protested today. It is up to you to turn it into a struggle or not,” Udhayanidhi said, warning of protests in front of “their” (Modi and Amit Shah’s) offices in Delhi.
The DMK had held three language wars and captured power in 1967 opposing Hindi, he said. “Just because the DMK is the ruling party now, we will definitely not be like ‘gathered for a day for agitation, raised slogans, protested and disbursed.’ We will oppose the imposition of Hindi language in any form. For us, Hindi Theriyathu, Poda (Don’t know Hindi, go),” he said.
Reiterating that the DMK’s policy was always to oppose the imposition of Hindi, the DMK MLA said the party would not back down from it nor give up. “Our state right… Be it opposition party or ruling party, our leader (Stalin) will never give up, because we are the followers of Periyar, Anna, Kalaignar (Karunanidhi),” Udhayanidhi said.
He added that the DMK’s youth wing and students wing had tasted victory in whichever protests they had held in the last four years.
Earlier, Central Chennai MP Dayanidhi Maran alleged that the BJP government at the Centre had “lifted weapons” like religion and Hindi imposition whenever elections were held, and the party again lifted Hindi in view of 2024 LS polls. He sought to know if Modi and Amit Shah did not have love for their mother tongue, Gujarati. “The best state in the country is a non-Hindi speaking state,” he said, warning not to impose Hindi on Tamil Nadu.
Kancheepuram MLA and DMK students’ wing secretary CVMP Ezhilarasan said the party had submitted a report on the National Education Policy since it was against social justice and equality and the spirit of the Constitution. The party was against competitive examinations conducted for admission to institutions built by the state from its own revenue, he added.