Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi

The Hindi issue comes back to haunt the BJP at the most inappropriate of times from its perspective.

In politics timing is of the essence and even after finding it out the hard way in Karnataka recently when the central government was seen as pushing Hindi when it came to a directive to call curd only Dahi instead of Mosaru in Kannada, and led to play up of emotional Kannada language issue in the midst of elections.

If that was an accident, repeating it with a similar directive in a state where the BJP is trying hard to penetrate, Tamil Nadu, can only be termed an invitation to disaster.

If the BJP was caught in the Mosaru (Kannada for curd) mix (creation of the cooperative department) in Karnataka, now the PSU Hindi push has given just the stick to Stalin in Tamil Nadu to chase the BJP away from the state.

In Tamil Nadu, a nation-wide circular issued by public sector insurance company, New India Assurance Company, on guidelines to promote use of Hindi has become the trigger point for State Chief Minister and DMK supremo MK Stalin rake up the emotional language card, just when the BJP appeared to be making efforts to strike deeper roots in the state.

Timing, of course, is of the essense and Stalin did not lose a minute in raising the pet theme of the DMK on issue of alleged Hindi imposition, few hours after Union Home Minister Amit Shah appealed to the Tamil Nadu voters to bless the NDA wit 25 seats as a thanksgiving gift for installing Sengol in the new parliament building. Stalin came out with a hard-hitting statement deploring the continued efforts of the central government to force Hindi down the throats of the people in the state.

The provocation for Stalin this time was a circular from the public sector New India Assurance company that he declared had disrespected non-Hindi speaking employees of the organisation with its new guidelines for use of Hindi. The latest instance is the circular of New India Assurance company that must be withdrawn immediately, Stalin said and demanded that its chairperson Neerja Kapur apologise to the non-Hindi speaking employees for disrespecting them.

This time expanding the scope and ambit of the anti-Hindi imposition issue, Stalin said the central government and public sector undertakings were playing favourites and giving undue importance to Hindi at the cost of other Indian languages. Noises against Hindi imposition are also being heard from other states like Karnataka and West Bengal too.

Stalin vowed to fight the Hindi imposition at any cost and asserted that “Gone are the days when non-Hindi speaking citizens of India tolerating the second-class treatment meted out to them despite their contribution in propelling India’s growth with their hard work and talent,” Stalin said in a tweet after the offending circular was brought to his attention.

Tamil Nadu and the DMK will do everything under our power to Stop Hindi Imposition, as we have always strived in our history. “We will remove the undeserving special  status that Hindi enjoys everywhere in the Union government, like Railways, Postal Department, Banking and Parliament that affect us and our people on a daily basis on a day-to-day basis. We pay our taxes, contribute to the progress and believe in our rich heritage and this nation’s diversity. Our languages deserve to be treated equally. We will resist any attempt to replace Tamil with Hindi in our land,” Stalin said in his tweet, clearly stepping up the ante on the language issue.

With his strident opposition to what he calls Hindi imposition, Stalin has given a clear cut indication that this issue will be kept alive in the election year if only to hit at the BJP, which is perceived as Hindi-speaking North Indian party. For sure this appears to be a move to fan this emotional issue that has been a vote winner for the DMK and in fact the one single issue that helped the DMK ride to power for the first time in 1967 defeating the mighty Congress. Incidentally, it was the Congress government at that time that tried to force Hindi and paid the price and even today, the Congress has not been able to find its feet again and has to depend on this or the other Dravidian party.