Chennai: DMK will stop opposing Hindi if the Union govt stops imposing it, chief minister M K Stalin has said.
In a letter to party cadres on Wednesday, Stalin said DMK was opposing Hindi because it was being imposed on TN people. “If it is not forced on us, we will not resist it. We will not remove Hindi signboards in Tamil Nadu,” he said.
Criticising BJP leaders who question DMK for opposing Hindi, Stalin said they should instead question Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and education minister Dharmendra Pradhan for neglecting Tamil on signboards at kumbh mela. “You (TN BJP leaders) should have asked them whether signboards in Dravidian languages, including Tamil, were installed in Uttar Pradesh for the benefit of people from southern states,” Stalin said. “You should have asked if announcements are made in all Indian languages and treated equally.”
Stalin said the Dravidian movement never nurtured animosity against any language. “Tamil has neither seen any language as a rival nor sought to destroy it. At the same time, when other languages try to dominate it, Tamil has never allowed it. History shows that Tamil will chase away those languages, the chief minister said.
Buttressing his argument that the Dravidian movement was not against any language, Stalin said P Thiagaraya Chetty, one of the founders of the Justice Party, the political forerunner of the Dravidian movement, organized Sanskrit classes at his home for those who wanted to learn it, regardless of caste.
Panagal Raja, the first CM from Justice Party, was fluent in Sanskrit, he said. “Yet, leaders of the Justice Party stood with Periyar during protests against Hindi imposition in 1937 because schools in the Madras Presidency were forced to adopt Hindi as a compulsory subject under Rajaji’s rule,” Stalin said.