Challenging the central government over the ongoing discussion on the three-language policy under the National Education Policy (NEP), Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin strongly criticized it. According to him, earlier, the forced imposition of Hindi has resulted in the erosion of linguistic diversity in North India and, over the years, 25 native languages have ‘swallowed.’
In a tweet on X (formerly Twitter), Stalin talks about how Hindi was pushed for a continuous monolithic Hindi identity that kills ancient mother languages. Bihar and UP were never to be bounded as ‘Hindi heartlands.’ Now, their real languages are relics of the past. He spoke as he released a letter objecting to the linguistic policies of a central government.
The NEP has also pitted the Centre against the state government of Tamil Nadu, headed by the DMK, on the issue of the three-language formula, in which the regional language is mandatory to be added in school education, along with English and Hindi. Tamil Nadu had successfully stood up to the Hindi imposition in the past and has always backed a two-language system (Tamil and English).
In his letter, Stalin took it further to say that “Hindi is only a mask, while Sanskrit is the real face behind this language imposition.” He stated that forcefully treating Hindi as the sole unifying language of India and other languages as lesser is done deliberately to erase India’s linguistic diversity.
In India, in particular, the south, non-Hindi speakers feel their native languages are in danger of being marginalized, and hence the long-standing language dispute has been reignited after Stalin’s statements. The criticism of him comes from Tamil Nadu’s decades-long resistance to Hindi imposition, dating back to the anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s.
Stalin’s comments against the NEP’s language policy reflect the fact that linguistic identity is an issue of deep sensitivity and with language being such a politically sensitive issue to begin with, Stalin’s comment has added to the growing objection to the NEP language policy which marks another front in the greater struggle for the preservation of India’s linguistic heritage.
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