The Tamil Nadu Assembly on October 18 adopted a resolution against the Central government’s moves to impose Hindi, saying that such moves would be impractical and divisive and would discriminate against non-Hindi speaking people. The BJP staged a walkout, while some AIADMK members were evicted over another issue.
The government resolution, moved by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, read: “This House urges the Union government not to implement the recommendations made in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Official Language submitted by its chairman to the President on September 9, 2022, which are against the State languages including Tamil and also against the interest of the people who speak those languages.” The recommendations were against the two-language policy adopted by the State and against the guarantees given by the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Leader of the House and Minister Durai Murugan said: “Anti-Hindi sentiment is deeply ingrained in all Tamil people in Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately, these people [the AIADMK MLAs] have tried to create ruckus even ahead of this resolution.” The resolution was passed by a voice vote.
Amit Shah committee
The committee headed by Home Minister Amit Shah had recommended that Hindi be the medium of instruction in Central educational institutions. They include the Indian Institute of Technologies, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and Central universities.
It also recommended that Hindi be the medium of instruction in all technical and non-technical institutions, and all Central government institutions, including Kendriya Vidyalayas.
After the committee sent its report to the President, Stalin had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 16, 2022, reminding him that all languages in the Eighth Schedule should be treated equally as envisaged in the Constitution.
In his letter he said: “I would like to point out that the number of people speaking languages other than Hindi is numerically more than Hindi-speaking people in the Indian Union.”
He wanted all languages in the Eighth Schedule to be declared as official languages. Members who spoke on the Tamil Nadu State Assembly resolution reflected these sentiments.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan too had opposed the imposition and had written to the Centre in this regard.
Earlier in the day, AIADMK MLAs aligned with former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, did not allow the House to function over Speaker M. Appavoo’s “inordinate delay” in taking a decision on the new deputy leader of the opposition. (Edappadi’s supporters said that they had given a letter to the Speaker to replace O. Pannerselvam, former Chief Minister and deputy leader of opposition, with R.B. Udayakumar. The Speaker informed the House that the letter was under consideration.
Appavoo told the House that the AIADMK members were creating a ruckus because they did not want to vote for the motion on the Hindi imposition resolution and anger the BJP.
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