Three-language policy: Hindi is mask, Sanskrit the face, says CM Stalin

CHENNAI: Emphasising his opposition to the imposition of Hindi, especially in the wake of recent attempts by Union ministers to allay the apprehensions of non-Hindi speaking states, Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday said the push for a monolithic Hindi identity was killing the ancient mother tongues in the country.

Posting the summary of his three-part letter to DMK cadre on the language issue, Stalin said, “My dear sisters and brothers from other states, ever wondered how many Indian languages Hindi swallowed? Bhojpuri, Maithili, Awadhi, Braj, Bundeli, Garhwali, Kumaoni, Magahi, Marwari, Malvi, Chhattisgarhi, Santhali, Angika, Ho, Kharia, Khortha, Kurmali, Kurukh, Mundari and many more are now gasping for survival.”

“The push for a monolithic Hindi identity is what kills ancient mother tongues. UP and Bihar were never just ‘Hindi heartlands.’ Their real languages are now relics of the past. Tamil Nadu resists because we know where this ends,” added the CM.

Remarking that over 25 native languages of north Indian states were destroyed by the ‘invasion’ of oppressive Hindi and Sanskrit in the last century, the DMK president said that only the BJP embraces a principle that is a complete misfit to the Tamil soil and contrary to the culture of Tamils, and its hit squad here supports the trilingual policy on the premise that one could even learn foreign languages as the third language under trilingual policy.

“The list demonstrates that either Hindi or Sanskrit were prioritised in the name of trilingual policy. Except the Andaman & Nicobar Islands inhabited by Tamils, nowhere does Tamil feature. We cannot guarantee how long that would last, even. The linguistic fascism of appointing Sanskrit teachers instead of Urdu teaches was done in BJP-ruled Rajasthan,” the CM said, cautioning that the mother tongue would be completely neglected and only sanskritisation would happen in Tamil Nadu, if the state subscribed to trilingual policy.