Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is also president of the DMK, on Friday strongly criticised Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks that Hindi should be the language of communication between States in India.
Taking to Twitter, Stalin charged that the BJP Government at the Centre was constantly working towards destroying India’s pluralistic identity. He cautioned that Shah’s statement was an attempt to destroy the unity of India.
He wondered if Shah believed that Hindi-speaking States alone are enough and that the [other] Indian States are not required. “A single language will not be of use for unity. A single identity will not create unity,” he said and warned, “You are repeatedly making the same mistake. But you won’t win.”
In a similar tone, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K S Alaigri in a statement said a protest would be launched if the Centre continued its attempts to impose Hindi on the people of non-Hindi speaking States. He said the Home Minister’s comments agitated against the Constitution and the Official Languages Act. Accusing the BJP of discriminating people on religious lines over the past eight years for electoral dividends, Alagiri said such attempts were against India’s federal spirit and unity. “Now the BJP Government at the Centre is trying to divide people on linguistic lines,” he said adding that Shah’s remarks were causing anxiety and anger among the people in non-Hindi speaking States.
The Congress leader pointed out that the Official Languages Act amendment in 1967 made it clear that the language of communication between non-Hindi-speaking States must be in English.
