The Tamil language and its grammar are one of the oldest in the world and popularising them is the responsibility of the entire country, Home Minister Amit Shah said on Saturday.
Addressing the platinum jubilee celebrations of India Cements in Chennai, Shah also urged the state government to provide medical and technical education in Tamil to promote the language.
“Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world. Its grammar is also one of the oldest. I request the Tamil Nadu government to provide medical and technical education in the Tamil language so that Tamil-medium students can benefit and conduct research and development in their mother tongue,” Shah said.
The home minister said if taken, the step would “serve the language in a big way”.
Shah’s push for Tamil comes amid a raging linguistic war that rears its head from time to time, with southern states up in arms against ‘Hindi imposition’.
Last month, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating that the recommendations given by Shah — who heads the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language — to President Droupadi Murmu were against the democratic principles of the country, especially one which said youngsters will get jobs only if they learn Hindi.
The letter came a few days after Stalin launched a tirade against the Centre over the language issue and warned the BJP-led government not to force another language war by imposing Hindi.
“Imposing Hindi is against the integrity of India. The BJP government would do well to learn lessons from the anti-Hindi agitations in the past,” he said apparently referring to the agitations in Tamil Nadu that fueled Tamil pride.
“The rigorous thrust by Union BJP government for #HindiImposition, negating the diversity of India is happening at an alarming pace. The proposals made in the 11th volume of the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language are a direct onslaught on India’s soul,” Stalin tweeted on October 10.
The home minister has on previous occasions too slammed the “disinformation campaign” to pit Hindi against native languages, calling it a “friend and not a competitor” of all regional languages.
“I want to make one thing very clear. Some people are spreading disinformation that Hindi and Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil, Hindi and Marathi are competitors. Hindi cannot be a competitor to any other language in the country. You must understand that Hindi is the friend of all the languages of the country,” Shah had said in September.
“Everybody should accept and understand this. So long as we do not accept the co-existence of languages, we cannot realise the dream of running the country in our own language. And I want to say with sincerity that it should be our aim to keep all the languages and mother tongues alive and prosperous. Only with the prosperity of all these languages will Hindi prosper,” Shah added.
In June, the Draft New Educational Policy 2019 had created an uproar, especially in the southern states, after a clause recommended mandatory Hindi teaching in all schools.
After the release of Union government’s original draft, all Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu blasted the recommendations, and even the BJP’s ally AIADMK refused to dilute the state’s two language formula.
Protests were also seen over in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The Centre went into damage control mode later, with senior cabinet ministers tweeting reassurances that Hindi would not be imposed without further consultations. Finally, the revised draft was uploaded by the Human Resource Development Ministry.
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