CPI (M) MP Su.Venkatesan on Tuesday alleged that Hindi imposition by the BJP government had become so pervasive that officials letters sent to him from Parliament bore the address in Hindi.
“Earlier only the communications were in Hindi and now they are writing my address in Hindi. Even the postman who delivers them cannot read it and tells me that he is dumping at my residence all the letters bearing Hindi address,” Mr. Venkatesan said while addressing the Protection of Mother Tongue and Anti-imposition of Hindi conference of the Southern States held in Chennai.
He said communists, more than anyone else in the State, could take pride in the fact it was CPI (M) leader N. Sankaraiah who made a case for Tamil as compulsory language instead of English in Tamil Nadu. “He along with late leader A. Balasubramaniam fought for making the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) to conduct examinations in all the 14 (major) languages,” he added.
Mr. Venkatesan said the second tenure of the Modi government was witnessing blatant imposition of Hindi and the Lok Sabha Speaker had not uttered any word other than Hindi. “Eighty per cent of the Parliament proceedings are conducted in Hindi. Now they are dumping Hindi in Tamil Nadu as if it is a garbage yard,” he said.
A resolution adopted in the conference made it clear that while it was the right of every individual to learn any language including Hindi, imposing Hindi on non-Hindi speaking people could not be accepted.
“The recently released Draft National Education Policy (NEP) seeks to impose Hindi through back door. Imposing Hindi and neglecting all the 22 languages in the 8th schedule will amount to destablilsing the federal structure of the country,” the resolution warned.
A. Vijayragahavan, convener of the LDF Kerala, D. Veerabhadram, secretary, CPI (M), Telangana, party state secretary K. Balakrishnan, G Ramakrishnan, Polit Bureau member, M. Rajendran, former Vice-Chancellor, Thanjavur Tamil University, and K. Balabharathi, former MLA, spoke.
