Dhenkanal BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy often remains in news for his controversial views; and this time, it is for his letter urging a Central Minister to write him in Odia or English rather than in Hindi.
Satpathy had got a letter from Union RD Minister Narendra SinghTomar in Hindi and in response to it he shot back a letter specifying that he could not read Hindi and hence, was not able to understand the content of the letter from the Union Ministry. Though Satpathy raised a personal problem, the way it was raised and the deeper political undertones it has had, triggered a row.
First of all, Satpathy questioned the propriety of writing letters to a non-Hindi speaking MP in Hindi by a Hindi-speaking Union Minister and there by stirred a hornet's nest by setting the non-Hindi parts of India against the Hindi heartland. His contention was that Hindi, despite being our national language, cannot be forced upon the non-Hindi speaking people in India, more so, when the case is with a public representative.
Satpathy also tried to underscore the superiority of Odia language over Hindi, by saying that while Odia is original, Hindi is a derivative of Sanskrit. In other words, he sought to mean that if one does not know Hindi and demands all communications in one's mother tongue, there is nothing to feel low. It is rather to feel high for one's deep love and respect for own language.
While Satpathy thereby managed to reap political mileage, he was caught on the wrong foot when he not just drew criticism from the opposition BJP in Odisha for his flirting for Odia, but two Union Ministers, including Prakash Javadekar and Tomar questioning Satpathy to correct his CM first who has not yet learned Odia despite being in power in Odisha for long years.
Tomar whom Satpathy had complained for Hindi communication also threw a salvo at the Odia MP for going to social media and mainstream media with the issue. Tomar and Javadekar during their visit to Odisha recently to join the BJP State executive meeting asked Satpathy to first urge his CM to learn Odia. They wanted to know why Satpathy was not insisting CM Naveen Patnaik to speak and write in Odia if he loves the language so much.
Senior BJP leader Prithivraj Harichandan also questioned the sincerity of Satpathy's Odia love. “Satpathy as an editor has never written an article in his newspaper favoring the campaign pressing for use of Odia for all official correspondences in Odisha,” Harichandan said.
Notably, Satpathy had hit headlines for his twitter war with another BJD MP Baijayant Panda much to the embarrassment of CM Patnaik.
Similarly, on earlier occasions, Satpathy had raised eyebrows by saying that he did not know Odia MP Dharmendra Pradhan. Notably, Dharmendra is a native of Satpathy's Parliamentary constituency.