The Ministry of Panchayati Raj irked many on Saturday after it took to Twitter with a quote purportedly by Mahatma Gandhi and suggested that a national language was of major significance to India. Since then, the handle has shared two more posts centered around Gandhi.
"A nation is dumb without a national language," read the quote. Perhaps a tad ironically, it was printed in both Hindi and English.
Here, we feel compelled to mention that the word dumb is not meant as aslight. Perhaps a better translation would have been that a nation is "mute" without a national language. We mention this because some of those reacting to the post appeared to be under the impression that their intellectual prowess was being questioned.
The post has not gone down well with many on the social media platform. While some were irked at the thought of adopting a language that was not their own, others were convinced that Mahatma Gandhi had never actually said any such thing.
". @mopr_goi we don't believe that Mahatma Gandhi said it. Can you please tell where and when he said it? Don't use Mahatma Gandhi's name to peddle your Hindi Imposition agendas. And stop calling we South Indians as Dumb..!" responded the AAP Karnataka team via its Twitter handle.
"Funny how they wrote that in 2 languages," wrote one user.
"Either make all Indian origin languages as national language or make none at all. And Mr Gandhi had an opinion, doesn't mean we all have adhere to the same," commented another.
Take a look:
