Amit Shah’s Hindi language push draws flak, top opposition leaders oppose move

Amit Shah had on Thursday said that Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.

Bengaluru: Union Home Minister Amit Shah's recent Hindi language push has drawn ire in Karnataka with Opposition leader Siddaramaiah Friday criticising it on Friday. Asserting that Hindi is not India's national language, former Karnataka chief minister and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday accused the ruling BJP of trying to unleash its agenda of "cultural terrorism" against non-Hindi speaking states.

Hindi is neither a national language nor a link language. In federal system, one can't impose any language forcefully.We don't have any problem learning other languages: Former Karnataka CM&LoP Siddaramaiah on Union HM's remark 'Hindi should be accepted as alternative to English' pic.twitter.com/kOGwukNQ0h

— ANI (@ANI) April 8, 2022

Taking offence to Union Home Minister Amit Shah's comment regarding the official language, the Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka assembly accused him of betraying the former's home state Gujarat and mother-tongue Gujarati for Hindi, for his political agenda.

Shah had on Thursday said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages. Presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.

"As a Kannadiga, I take strong offence to @HMOIndia @AmitShah's comment on Official language & medium of communication. Hindi is not our National Language & we will never let it be," Siddaramaiah tweeted with the tagline "#IndiaAgainstHindiImposition".

Stating that linguistic diversity is the essence of our country and we will respect each other's sentiments, the former chief minister said pluralism is what has held our nation together and any attempt by the BJP to undo this will be met with strong opposition and retaliation.

"Imposing Hindi is a sign of coercive federalism rather than cooperative federalism. The myopic view of BJP regarding our languages needs to be corrected and their opinions are derived from pseudo-nationalists like Savarkar," Siddaramaiah added.

Pointing out that 70 per cent of the agenda of the Cabinet is prepared in Hindi, Shah at the committee meeting had said the time has now come to make the official language Hindi an important part of the unity of the country. He, however, had said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.

Alleging that BJP is trying to unleash its agenda of cultural terrorism against non-Hindi speaking states, Siddaramaiah said the efforts of poets, authors, actors, and icons of Karnataka Ekikarana (unification) movement and others in strengthening the state shall be protected forever.

"It is time for the BJP to understand that more linguistic and cultural autonomy should be given to states. All All-India exams have to be held in regional languages, NEP has to be reworked to avoid Hindi imposition and all major state languages should be official languages," he said.

"It is disgraceful on the part of Amit Shah to betray his mother state Gujarat and mother-tongue Gujarati for Hindi for his political agenda. I wonder how a person who betrays his motherland can ever work in the interest of India," he said, adding that Shah's roots are from where Mahatma Gandhi was born, but behaving like Savarkar".

Further noting that history clearly suggests that any attempt to impose Hindi in other states has not gone well, Siddaramaiah said: "We take pride in Kannada identity and we believe that Karnataka, as our poet laureate Kuvempu said, is the daughter of Bharata."

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s ruling TMC on Friday said any effort to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states will be resisted, a day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the time has come to make official language Hindi an important part of the country's unity.

Pointing out that Hindi was not India's national language, the TMC said his agenda of "one nation, one language and one religion" will remain unfulfilled. "If Amit Shah and the BJP try to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states, it will be resisted. The people of this country, where there is so much diversity, will never accept such a thing,’’ the party said.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan too slammed Shah saying that the "three-language formula" does not make sense and it is completely "off logic".

"Why should I have a three-language formula?...It makes no sense...Union Home Minister Amit Shah`s comment is completely off logic. Hindi is not intrinsic to at least 60 per cent-70 per cent of country...Not only it is chauvinism but it is economically inverse logic," said Tamil Nadu Finance Minister today.

The Congress party also accused Home Minister Amit Shah of trying to impose Hindi and said in doing so he is doing a disservice to the language.

The opposition party also said Shah was trying to divert public attention from the issues of inflation and price rise. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Hindi is 'Raj Bhasha' (official language) and not 'Rashtra Bhasha' (national language), as Rajnath Singh had noted in Parliament when he was the home minister.

"Hindi imperialism will be the death knell for India. I'm very comfortable with Hindi, but I don't want it rammed down anybody's throat. Amit Shah is doing a disservice to Hindi by imposing it," Ramesh said on Twitter.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the home minister has tried to sermonise about Hindi which he should not. "The home minister has tried to sermonise us about Hindi. I have already answered in Hindi. I am a great supporter of Hindi, but not of imposition, not of provocative politics, not of divisive politics," he told reporters at a press conference.

He also alleged that by raking up the issue of Hindi, the home minister is also trying to divert people's attention from inflation and price rise.

(With Agency Inputs)