The Centre’s move to promote Hindi in social media and official work snowballed into a political slugfest on Friday with Tamil parties, including Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and two of BJP’s allies in Tamil Nadu, opposing it strongly, besides Congress and BSP. However, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Shiv Sena backed the step.
Ruffled by the onslaught including Jayalalithaa writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi describing the Home Ministry’s proposal as “against the letter and spirit,” of the Official languages Act, 1963, “the Government clarified use of Hindi on social media was only for Hindi-speaking States.”
“Use of Hindi on government of India’s social media platforms is only for Hindi-speaking States... Hindi is not being imposed on non-Hindi-speaking states,” an official spokesperson said. “Existing policy on Hindi reiterated for official social media platforms,” the spokesperson said.
He also said The Department of Official languages, Ministry of Home Affairs, had issued a circular on March 10 this year stating that in keeping with the existing policy of the government regarding use of Hindi, Government of India communication in ‘A’ category States i.e. Hindi speaking States must give equal importance to the use of Hindi in its social media platforms. The instructions reiterated that both English and Hindi must be used on official Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc by the Government of India.
It clarified that these instructions of the Department of Official languages issued on March 10 did not seek to impose communication in Hindi on States which are not Hindi speaking. The instructions of Department of Official languages have only reiterated the existing Government of India’s policy on the use of Hindi in which the use of Hindi is compulsory in Government’s communication only in the Hindi-speaking States.
“The Ministry of Home Affairs in its circular dated May 27 communicated the above guidelines of the Department of Official languages with regard to the social media to the departments under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Therefore, this is neither a new policy nor an attempt to impose the use of Hindi on any non Hindi speaking State,” he said.
In an attempt to bring down the tension, Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu also denied any imposition of Hindi and called it a false propaganda carried out against the NDA Government. He also said he strongly advocates learning in local language.“This is again a wrong propaganda going on; nobody is forcing Hindi on anybody...,” Naidu, also the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, told reporters in Bangalore.
The issue turned into a major controversy after Tamil Nadu chief minister in her letter said the proposal to promote Hindi was a “highly sensitive issue” and caused “disquiet” to the people of Tamil Nadu “who are very proud of and passionate about their linguistic heritage.”“Social media by their very nature were not only accessible to all persons on the internet, but were meant to be a means of communication to persons living in all parts of India, including those in ‘Region C’,” she said.
Incidentally, as per 2001 Census: language: 6,661 Mother Tongues returned in Census 2001 and Hindi emerged as the predominant language spoken by about 41% of the population. Next four in order of number of speakers are: Bengali (8.1%), Telugu (7.2%), Marathi (7%) and Tamil (5.9%).
While DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, whose party had successfully led the anti-Hindi agitation in 1960s, had on Thursday dubbed the move as a beginning of “imposition of Hindi,” the two allies of NDA including PMK and MDMK also opposed it.PMK founder S Ramadoss said the BJP in its 2014 election manifesto, had promised to develop all languages with rich history and culture. He also called for declaring all 22 languages in the VIII schedule of the Constitution, including Tamil, as official language and “thus put an end to the Hindi imposition controversy.”
MDMK chief Vaiko cited Modi’s preference of the social media platform and said the Centre’s advisory on Hindi was a “matter of concern.” He demanded that all Indian languages be made official languages in the interest of the country’s “unity and integrity” and till such time English should continue as the official language. The state unit of CPI also opposed the move.Criticising the two Home Ministry circulars seeking to promote official language Hindi in the social media, Congress advised caution to the government saying this has resulted in a backlash in non-Hindi states especially Tamil Nadu.
“There is a backlash in non-Hindi states especially Tamil Nadu. Government would be well-advised to proceed with caution,” P Chidambaram, former Union Minister and senior party leader from Tamil Nadu, said in New Delhi. CPI(M) also attacked the Modi Government for its directive on the use of Hindi as the medium for government communication on social media and sought modification of the same.BSP chief Mayawati said the Centre should be equally enthusiastic about regional languages too adding “encouraging use of Hindi language is good but our country has rich heritage of regional languages. That should be encouraged too.”
But UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was all for Hindi and said, “The Samajwadi Party Government is always in favour of Hindi and Urdu. Samajwadi Party has always supported Hindi.”
Shiv Sena also favoured the measure and found there was nothing wrong in promoting Hindi. Sena spokesman Sanjay Raut there will be state languages but Hindi should be promoted as social language. However, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a big country like India any attempt to impose one religion, one language will not work.
Defending the Government’s move, the BJP said in New Delhi, promotion of Hindi should not be construed as an “insult” to English. “It is not a crime to work in Hindi. It is a national language. We have many national languages and every one has the right to work in a national language. Hindi is not being imposed on a non-Hindi State. What objection is there if we work in Hindi,” BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain said.