MDMK to hold protest march against ‘Imposing’ Hindi

CHENNAI: The Madumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) leader Vaiko will lead a protest march of the party at Valluvar Kottam near Chennai on October 6 against Union Home Minister Amit Shah's statement that Hindi was equivalent to English.

Vaiko, in a statement, said that the Tamil people don't hate Hindi but will not accept any language being 'imposed' on them. He said that India was a land of many languages and MDMK as a political party believed in unity in diversity.

He also said that imposing Hindi was the politics of the right-wing and that this would destroy the future of Indian students.

In a related development, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder leader Dr. S. Ramadoss would hold protest marches at Karaikkal against the four-hour continuous broadcasting of Hindi language service broadcasts by the All India Radio.

He said that the four-hour Hindi broadcast that commenced on October 2 is at the expense of Tamil broadcast. The PMK leader said that the Prasar Bharti was imposing Hindi broadcast in Karaikkal radio station, Tamil Nadu.

Dr Ramadoss came out strongly against the imposition of Hindi across all radio stations in the country and bringing a uniform format. He said that bringing uniform radio programmes in a country like India which is diverse in language and culture was against the principle of Unity in diversity.

He called upon the Prasar Bharti to drop its expansion plans in Dharmapuri, Nagarcoil, and other stations and said that the local stations were started to help farmers and fishermen.