The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, declared with all the emphasis at her command, that there was no desire to impose Hindi on the South and the D.M.K. need not have any concern in this regard. While the Government believed that all the national languages would have equal status, it was also important that to understand each other they should have a link language. The Government had given the solemn assurance that English would be retained as an associate language of the Union till such time as it was necessary, Mrs. Gandhi said. The Prime Minister also said that the bill to implement the assurances given by her father would be introduced in the budget session of Parliament. While this assurance of the Prime Minister which was welcomed by all came in the afternoon [April 5, New Delhi] during her reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, the language issue once again cropped up during the question hour in the morning [April 5] in a peculiar way. When the question relating to the guidance to be given to Governors for formation of Governments was being discussed, the Opposition member from Kerala, Mr. Sridharan, put a question in Malayalam. The Speaker promptly said that it was necessary for him to understand a question.
