The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution urging the Centre not to implement the recommendations made in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Languages, submitted by its chairman to the President of India.
Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, who moved the resolution, charged that the recommendations were against regional languages, including Tamil, and the interest of people who spoke those languages. “DMK was born to nurture Tamil and to protect it from the onslaught of other languages. The party has been functioning as a Tamil protection movement since its inception,” the Chief Minister said
BJP stages walkout
The BJP members staged a walkout. O. Panneerselvam, deputy leader of the AIADMK [Speaker is yet to act on a representation from the AIADMK removing him as deputy leader], supported the resolution. Three other MLAs, who were his supporters, were in the House when the resolution was moved. Other members headed by former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami had already been evicted from the House by the Speaker.
Mr. Stalin said imposition of Hindi began in 1938 and had been continuing since then.
“This is not a struggle to protect the language. We have been waging it as a war to protect the Tamil race and culture,” he said. The resolution alleged that many recommendations made in the report were contrary to the promise made by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and were against the use of English as official language as ensured by the resolutions passed in 1968 and 1976.
Recalling his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 16, Mr. Stalin said: “The recommendations are detrimental to the multilingual structure of our country and question the future by ignoring English and completely excluding the 22 languages of non-Hindi speaking States, which are mentioned in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.”
Mr. Stalin said Tamil Nadu had again been pushed to the forefront to defend the mother tongue Tamil, to keep English as the official language, to preserve all 22 languages.
Minister for Water Resources and Leader of the House Duraimurugan said it was an emotional moment for him as he was one of the student leaders who spearheaded the anti-Hindi agitation in 1965. “This is the House that named the State as Tamil Nadu. The members of the House hailed it when the then Chief Minister Anna [C.N. Annadurai] moved the resolution. I witnessed it by sitting in the gallery,” he recalled.
BJP floor leader Nainar Nagendran said his party would certainly condemn if Hindi was imposed. “But I have no reason to believe it since Prime Minister had quoted Tirukural and spoke about Tamil in the United Nations. If a student from Tamil Nadu gets admission in a State like Uttar Pradesh, he can continue his lesson through English as a medium,” he said.
Congress floor leader Selvaperunthagai recalled the promises made by Nehru and his successor Lal Bahadur Sastri that Hindi would not be imposed.
