All 22 languages should be made official languages: Stalin

CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Sunday suggested the union government to make all the 22 languages, listed in schedule eight of the Indian constitution, as the official languages and not to replace English with Hindi.

Reiterating his stand on official languages, Stalin, in a DO letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. said "I suggest that the approach of the union government should be to include all languages, including Tamil, the official language, keeping in view the scientific development and technological facilities and promote all languages and keep open the avenues of progress in terms of education and employment equal to speakers of all languages"

Recalling the recent report of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Languages Chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah that Hindi should replace English in all the union government's higher education institutions and removal of English as on of the compulsory papers in the recruitment exams, Stalin said that all 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule have equal rights and there are several demands to include more languages in the Schedule.

"I would like to point out that the number of people speaking languages other than Hindi is numerically more than Hindi-speaking people in the Indian Union. I am sure you would appreciate that every language has its own speciality with its uniqueness and linguistic culture. It is with the objective of protecting our rich and unique languages from the imposition of Hindi that English has been made as the link language and continues to be one of the official languages of the union government." said Stalin.

Recalling the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation, loss of lives in the agitation and the assurance made by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that, "English will continue to be one of the official languages as long as the non-Hindi speaking people want", Stalin said "promoting the rich and varied cultural diversity along with respective distinct linguistic flavours is the pride and strength of the Indian subcontinent. The Nation stands as a shining example for multicultural and multil-inguistic democracy in the world arena today, because of the inclusive and harmonious policies being followed so far. But, I am afraid, the continued efforts to promote Hindi in the name of 'one nation' will destroy the feeling of brotherhood of people of different languages and cultures and is detrimental to the integrity of India." warned Stalin.