Amit Shah told parliament that 70 percent of the cabinet’s agenda is now in Hindi.
New Delhi/Chennai/Kolkata:
Home Secretary Amit Shah’s pitch for the Hindi language drew sharp criticism on Friday, with opposition parties calling it an attack on India’s pluralism and claiming they will thwart the move to impose ‘Hindi imperialism’ .
The main opposition congress accused Shah of forcing Hindi, saying it was doing the language a disservice.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh claimed that Hindi ‘Raj Bhasha’ (official language) and not ‘Rashtra Bhasha‘ (national language), as Rajnath Singh had remarked in Parliament when he was Home Secretary.
“Hindi imperialism will be the death knell for India. I’m very comfortable with Hindi, but I don’t want it shoved down anyone’s throat. Amit Shah is doing Hindi a disservice by imposing it,” Ramesh said. on Twitter.
Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said the Home Secretary has tried to preach on Hindi, which he should not do.
“The Home Secretary has been trying to preach to us about Hindi. I have already replied in Hindi. I am a big proponent of Hindi, but not for imposition, not for provocative politics, not for divisive politics,” he said. reporters at a press conference.
He also claimed that by raising the issue of Hindi, the Home Secretary is also trying to divert people’s attention from inflation and price hikes.
“Will your Hindi sermon solve inflation or unemployment – no. Your aim is digression, distraction, derailment. Second, your aim is to create mutual mistrust through imposition, through coercion,” he said.
Don’t set fire to…don’t preach to us,” he said.
While chairing the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Commission in New Delhi, Mr Shah had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium to run the government is the official language and that it will certainly increase the importance of Hindi, according to a statement issued by the Union Ministry of the Interior.
He informed members that 70 percent of the cabinet’s agenda is now in Hindi.
Shah said now is the time to make the official language Hindi an important part of the country’s unity, and Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not local languages.
The chief minister of Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin, whose DMK has been at the forefront of anti-Hindi movements that often turned violent, said Shah’s attack on Hindi went against India’s “integrity and pluralism”.
In response to the Shah’s statement of April 7, Stalin said it will damage the integrity of the nation.
The top of the BJP is constantly working to harm India’s pluralism, Stalin, who is also the DMK president, said on Twitter.
“Does @AmitShah think ‘Hindi state’ is enough and Indian states are not necessary?” he asked. The prime minister of Tamil Nadu stressed that a single language will not help unity.
“You keep making the same mistake. But you won’t succeed!” Mr. Stalin tweeted.
West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress said any attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi-speaking states by the BJP-led center will be resisted.
Trinamool noted that Hindi is not the national language of India and said Mr Shah’s agenda of “one nation, one language and one religion” will remain unfulfilled.
“If Amit Shah and the BJP try to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states, it will resist. The people of this country, where there is so much diversity, will never accept such a thing.
“Even India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had said Hindi will not be imposed on non-Hindi-speaking states until they are willing to accept it,” said senior Trinamool leader Sougata Roy.
Echoing him, another senior Trinamool veteran, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, said attempts to project Hindi as the national language violate the “spirit of the constitution”.
“We are against this agenda of Hindi imperialism…that’s how fascism is growing. Imposing Hindi is against the principles of federalism,” said Mr Ray.
Pro-Bengali advocacy groups such as ‘Bangla Pokkho’ also said that ‘Hindi imperialism’ will not be tolerated.
Karnataka’s former chief minister, Siddaramaiah, claimed that Hindi is not the national language of India and accused the BJP of trying to unleash its “cultural terrorism” agenda against non-Hindi-speaking states.
“As a Kannadiga, I take strong offense at @HMOIndia @AmitShah’s comment about the official language and means of communication. Hindi is not our national language and we will never let it happen,” Siddaramaiah tweeted with the tagline “#IndiaAgainstHindiImposition”.
The congress leader claimed that linguistic diversity is the essence of India and said pluralism has held the nation together.
“The imposition of Hindi is a sign of coercive federalism rather than cooperative federalism. The BJP’s myopic view of our languages needs to be corrected and their opinions are derived from pseudo-nationalists like Savarkar,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
