Chennai: With Assembly elections approaching in Tamil Nadu, chief minister and DMK chief M K Stalin has once again raked up the controversial language issue in the state by saying that the “imposition” of Hindi will be forever opposed in the state.
Stalin, on Sunday, hailed “Language Martyrs” of the state, who sacrificed their lives during the anti-Hindi agitation in the past, and asserted that there was “no place” for the language here forever, as reported by The Federal.
“A state that loved its language like its life, unitedly struggled against Hindi imposition; protested with the same intensity every time it was imposed,” Stalin posted while paying tributes on the occasion of Language Martyrs Day in the state.
“Language Martyrs Day; there is no place for Hindi then, now and forever (in TN),” he added.
The chief minister also shared a brief video o
f the history related to the anti-Hindi agitation, which peaked during 1965, including references to the ‘martyrs’, besides the contributions of late DMK stalwarts, C N Annadurai and M Karunanidhi in the language issue.
“By leading the anti-Hindi agitation, Tamil Nadu “safeguarded the right and identity of various linguistic national races in the sub-continent,” Stalin added.
“I pay my grateful respects to those martyrs who gave their precious lives for Tamil. No more life will be lost in the language war; our love for Tamil will never die! We shall oppose Hindi imposition forever. #LanguageMartyrsDay #StopHindiImposition,” he further said.
Language Martyrs is a reference to those who had sacrificed their lives, mainly by self-immolation, during the anti-Hindi agitation across Tamil Nadu in 1964-65.
The southern state follows the two-language formula – Tamil and English – with the DMK alleging an effort to impose Hindi through the Centre’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 that speaks of a three-language system.
This despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan assuring that NEP 2020 has nothing to do with the imposition of Hindi and lays stress on the use of the mother tongue.