Opposing Home Minister Amit Shah’s pitch for Hindi as the nation’s common language, AIADMK on Saturday cautioned against its ‘imposition’ while the DMK demanded that he withdraw his view, since it would “infringe national integrity.”
After Shah said Hindi is the most spoken language which can unite the nation as a common language, Tamil Nadu parties rallied against it. AIADMK leader and Tamil culture Minister K Pandiarajan said: “if the Centre imposes Hindi unilaterally, there will only be (adverse) reaction and no support, not only in Tamil Nadu, but also in states like Bengal, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.”
Making it clear that he was not aware of the context in which Shah made those comments, he opined that the remarks appeared to be intended to bring Hindi to the position of English, which had performed the role of a link language all along in the country.