Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) will hold a demonstration on June 11 in Chennai urging the Centre and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to remove a cartoon from the twelfth standard Social Science textbook that ridicules the anti-Hindi agitation and the students who participated in it.
In a statement here, the party’s General Secretary Vaiko said the cartoon, by giving the assumption that the students of Tamil Nadu knew neither English nor Hindi, had hurt the sentiments of Tamils and humiliated the student community as a whole.
“The students who participated in the anti-Hindi agitation had good knowledge of English and wanted to continue English as the official language. They opposed Hindi, because they feared that it would relegate Tamils into a secondary citizen in the country,” Mr. Vaiko explained.
He said a total of 65 student-agitators had fallen prey to the bullets of the Indian Army, which was deployed in the State to quell the student unrest, and eight other agitators committed self-immolation.
“This led to the Congress losing power in the state in 1967 and Anna after becoming the Chief Minister announced in the Assembly that Hindi would have no place in the State,” Mr. Vaiko said.
India is India only so long as it is multi-lingual/cultural/religious.
No single language ought to ever be the national language (thankfully,
the 1950 motion ensured that). Let's face the facts: English is the de
facto official language in India. There is simply no point in forcing
a pan-Indian identity through Hindi, which except in a few states is
not spoken elsewhere in India. We could take a cue from Europe, which
doesn't even have a quarter of India's linguistic diversity, but has
found a practical system to conduct business and still preserve their
linguistic richness . Every Indian regional language ought to not only
be promoted but also enriched so that access to information and
knowledge is not solely in English. But at the same time, English
should be taught (and taught really well) compulsorily in all schools
for socio-economic and educational mobility. Furthermore,
opportunities should be made available to learn other
regional/classical/foreign languages.
Many of the commentators here Some Tamil and some not see no point in the issue being raised. This cartoon has no place in text book especially when there is no appropriate commentary. North Indians want the whole of India to speak Hindi but they wont learn additional language like Tamil/Telugu/Kannada/Malayalam/Oriya etc. We Tamil will do much better if we protect Tamil + Learn English which feeds us. We are not stopping anyone from learning Hindi, please go ahead and do so but don't force that on anyone. This is not about EGO but about my culture, values and protecting world's oldest language. Hindi speaking population do not have a cultural heritage or identity but they are keen to destroy the ones who have one. If you don't have wider and futuristic view, it's hard for you to see the issue with this cartoon. In today's context it totally distorts history and demeans the agitation which put TN on progressive path. Why to corrupt young minds with non sense?
Eric, you said "where is the necessity to learn a foreign language (Hindi or English) if you are not going to use it." But didn't you notice that you said that in English! And because you said it in English I was able to understand what you had to say. Had your comment been in Tamil I wouldn't have understood it. So I say let's have a reasonable pride of our own local languages (it's not Hindi for me, btw!) but let's not compare India to Japan unless what you are proposing is splitting this country by making each linguistic state a separate nation! I am no more a fan of Hindi than you are. And I certainly don't believe speaking Tamil is inferior at all. But neither is speaking Hindi or Telugu or Bangla or Marathi. Once we accept that we are one country and we would like to communicate with each other, we have to come up with some formula that will let us share ideas and emotions with each other. And that, my friend, is also a sign of trust in democracy :)
Vaiko is an instigator of violence non-pareil.He sees conspiracy in every trivial matter and proceeds to organise an agitation.He is an ardent supporter of the dreaded LTTE which is terrorist organisation. Now he has started another row over some cartoon which except for himself hardly anyone would have ever taken notice of.Vaiko would be well advised to channel his energy and other resources for the tangible benefits of the denizens of the state instead of involving himself in controversies.
I agree with Mr.Eric? But why not make study of any language, other than the regional language of the state concerned optional? I am a a Tamilian, love and study its literature even now, age 80. So i say make The Regional Compulsory. Leave the choice to the parents and students. But introduce language formula, provide teaching facility for every other language enumerated in the Schedule of the Constitution with study of English and Hindi essential, but marks obtained in these two languages not taken into account for a pass. Studies show that children absorb language skills quickly.
The debate for and against Hindi will never die. The question here is the freedom of speech. People can speak in any language of their choice as long as they effectively comunicate. The student should be left with the option of studying any language as an option. When our constitution recognise all major languages why discriminate? Remember, the motion to accept Hindi as our national language was voted by 50% of our MPs only. Finally, the Speaker cast his vote and the motion succeeded by a simple majority in the Lok Sabha and not by absolute majority! The bottom line is let the people choose. In the recent years, thousands of Hindi belt employees have migrated and been working in Tamil Nadu and other Southern States and they learnt the local language. Let the GoI be neutral and not influence by Chauvinists for political gain.
@Eric I completely agree with your chauvinism. In our house each of us have our own language, and no one learns each others language because in our house no one is inferior to other. Doesn't matter there is no communication of feelings and thoughts (which some idiots think is the idea of language, and not a medium to boost ones ego) in our, we all think we are superior.
@ Eric Selvaraj: By the same logic, why should any of the 6% of Tamilnadu residents, whose native language is Telugu, learn Tamil? What way Telugu is inferior than Tamil? Why is Tamil 'imposed' on these resident?
@Sankaran. Are you really a 'The Hindu' reader? Ashamed of your chauvinistic attitude. What's really funny is if you force us to speak Hindi and if we reject it, then you will call us chauvinistic?? We certainly need another 1965.
The Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian leaders do not English. British rule made Indians to behave like slaves and the same mentality and mindset continued even today. It is shame and that's why an uneducated Caucasian woman is the head of the Congress party in India. Indian must try to eliminate the slavery mentality from their hearts. Tamil is an ancient language and Dravidian must be proud of it.
@Sankaran, where is the necessity to learn a foreign language (hinid or english) if you are not going to use it. Name me one minister in China or Japan who speaks English (nevermind in parliament). To use one's mother tongue is a sign of trust in democracy in any country. Why is speaking Tamil any inferior than Hindi? The previous PM Vajpayee always spoke Hindi, not to mention many MPs from other states can only speak Hindi even today. Why should Hindi be accepted in parliament, but Tamil not? What makes Hindi superior?
Face facts . Hindi was and is being forced on non hindi speaking people, directly and indirectly.Is that not chauvinism. There are millions of Tamilians who know English apart from Tamil. A few MPs cannot be shown as examples lacking in multilingual ability.Tamil being a classical language was not being given the importance by earlier central governments.Tamil is the official national language in many other countries like Malaysia and Singapore etc, but in its own motherland it was being given lower status than Hindi.Tamilians cannot tolerate that.There are more multilingual speakers in tamil nadu than in the Hindi speaking North.
Let mr.Vaiko organise some agitation for increase in petrol rates,bus fare increase milk price increase power rate increase which are all more important issues which affects conman man very severely. In stead he wastes his time as well as public by organizing agitations which will not achieve anything constructively for the benefit of people
once a decision has been taken that there should be no cartoons in school text books the same should be followed uniformly without waiting for each group to start an agitation;
Political cartoons are not needed for students. Similarly using students for political purpose like anti-hindi agitations etc is also not a good example. Congress lost in many places other than TN during end of 1960's. So it is not anti-Hindi agitations that brought Congress's downfall as DMK,MDMK etc. would want us to believe. Mr.Annadurai also knew very well that if his party fights alone they will lose as they had never won majority earlier. Two ppl Mr.Annadurai and Mr.Rajaji who had different political ideology and were mutually against each other for decades joined together to fight election along with Mr.Thevar and other political parties.Now Mr.Annadurai's statues are everywhere in Chennai. why ppl are talking about PMK ... DMK also was once like PMK.. lot of noise and casteist with top leaders Mr.Annadurai, Mr.Nedunchezian, Mr.Anbazhagan etc.
Cartoons are not as harmless as the media and the Hindu newspaper suggests.A US Newspaper withdrew a cartoon that cleverly suggested that Obama was a Gorilla connecting with White American notions of African looks and its connotations of origins and inferior intelligence. Europe would not do that with the cartoon of the Prophet claiming freedom of expression. The double standards were obvious. I applaud the MDMK for taking this stand. The cartoonist, who belonged to the elite educated Brahmin community, suggested that the agitation was conducted by goons. Rajaji who was portrayed in the cartoon as being against Hindi actually wanted to introduce compulsory study of Hindi in all schools. I am glad that Anna and the DMK took a stand against Hindi imposition otherwise we in the South would have been a colony to Hindi Imperialists. I think that cartoons introduced into textbooks need to be vetted.
Let us face facts. We Tamilians lack sense of humor. We have a cabinet ranking minister who cannot answer in English or Hindi in Parliament.I have come across about 25 MPs from Tamil Nad, for whom other than Tamil all languages are alien.This type Chauvanism has reduced us to a parochial and paranoid group narrowing our career prospects.
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