Stalin takes exception to Shah's Hindi 'unifying' force remark

Chennai

DMK president M K Stalin on Monday locked horns with Union Home Minister Amit Shah over the latter's remark that Hindi is a unifying force and alleged that it affected the country's integrity.

Shah should realise that "Hindi affected the integrity of the country which is known for unity in diversity", Stalin alleged in a Facebook post. "The Home Minister should pay attention to saving Indians from coronavirus rather than saving Hindi," he said sarcastically.

Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said in a tweet:"We rejoice with the Hindi speaking people who are celebrating Hindi Diwas today. The Tamil speaking people are legitimately proud that the Tamil language is among the oldest languages of India." The former Minister also tweeted identical messages in Tamil and Hindi as well. Shah said the country's linguistic diversity is its strength as well as a symbol of unity and the new education policy provides for parallel development of Hindi and other Indian languages.

"A country is identified by its border and geography, but its biggest identity is its language. The various languages and dialects of India are its strength as well as a symbol of unity. In India, which is full of cultural and linguistic diversity, Hindi has been a unifying force for the whole nation for centuries," he said in a series of tweets and a video message. The DMK has been accusing the BJP-led Centre of seeking to impose Hindi. Stalin has also opposed the New Education Policy, claiming that it was an attempt to "impose" Hindi and Sanskrit.

Stalin's sister and DMK MP Kanimozhi had recently claimed a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) Personnel at the airport here had asked her if she was an Indian as she could not speak Hindi, which brought back the debate on "Hindi imposition".