Chennai: DMK has announced its decision to “temporarily postpone” the September 20 state-wide protest against union home minister Amit Shah’s call for “expanding the reach of Hindi” across the country. DMK president M K Stalin decided to postpone the protest after a 45-minute meeting with governor Banwarilal Purohit.
Stalin said that the governor explained to him that Shah’s speech on Hindi Diwas had been misunderstood. “The governor forcefully stressed that Hindi will not be imposed on Tamil Nadu. We asked the governor whether the Centre will confirm this. The governor said he represented the Centre and was saying what the Centre had conveyed to him,” said Stalin.
Stalin said he came to know about a clarification issued by Shah by way of a tweet. “Thus, based on what the governor and Shah have said, we have decided to postpone the protest,” said Stalin. Shah’s clarification and the governor’s explanation, coming as they did in the wake of the proposed protest, were a “victory” for DMK, he said. Sources that the NDA government had requested the governor to persuade DMK to withdraw its protest as it did not want anything to mar PM Modi’s visit to IIT Madras on September 30 as well as the second edition of the Indo-China informal summit that may be held in Mamallapuram.
Tamil most suited to unify India
Meanwhile, DMK has argued that Tamil was most suited to unify India. DMK MP and spokesperson T.K.S. Elangovan said if the government of India wants to choose an Indian language for a global identity, then Tamil, and not Hindi, qualifies for it. "Unity in diversity is the identity of India which we support. If there needs to be an Indian language for India's global identity, then Tamil is most suited," Elangovan said.
"Tamil is one of the oldest languages in the world. It is the official language in Sri Lanka, Singapore and India. It has the classical language status and is rich in literature. The Tamil culture has spread to several South Asian countries. There are Tamils who have migrated to far off lands several centuries ago," he said. The DMK leader said that while a large number of people speak Hindi in India, "it is equally true that there are more number of people who don't speak Hindi."
He argued that Hindi cannot be the India's global identity. "For instance, it is the non-Hindi speaking Indian states that are advanced in several metrics like economy, technology and social factors while the Hindi- speaking states lag far behind on these aspects." Stressing that DMK is not against any language, he said the party is opposed to the view of making Hindi as the global identity of India, which is seen as a sign of Hindi-imposition.
