Swaraat / Pattukkottai Balaraman
The Dravidian parties cry foul at the drop of the hat on hearing the word Hindi. On question of three language in their private schools, their stock response is we don’t oppose Hindi but oppose Hindi imposition.
When I visited Chitrakoot a priest in one of the temples was furious at me for this anti-hindi attitude as perceived by in the Hindi native land. This priest was so furious and rude that he was implicitly stubborn not to perform the normal ritual of harathi seva for us ,as he felt I was one of the Dravidian stocks.He became more upset when I questioned him why should we learn Hindi and instead why they should not learn our divine classical language tamil.
Besides the two formula , concurrent subject matters let us look into the genesis.The Central Government for donkey years has been promoting Hindi. Despite assurance from our politicians they stealthily insert Hindi in one form or other. Hindi imposition is not just forcing one to learn Hindi in school. In fact , that may be optional.
When the erstwhile minster of education Mrs. Smriti Irani visited Chennai , she proclaimed Hindi was the best language. Ironically, she does not know tamil before declaring such nonsense. On the contrary, Mahakavi bharathi who is proficient in languages proudly proclaims Tamil is the best language amongst the languages he knew (யாமறிந்த மொழிகளிலே தமிழ் மொழி போல்..)Such unwarranted provocations lead to permanent heartburning amongst non Hindi speaking communities.
Even today, if we visit any nationalised banks or public sector undertaking in chennai or interior tamilnadu, we can explicitly see Hindi divas or hindi promotion week. Railway stations in tamilnadu adorn hindi name boards. Hindi announcements can be heard inside the trains and outside.Any circulars from Government of India, runs to pages of hindi version first. Income tax assessment notices or other notices carry hindi version pages first and it takes hard efforts to search and find the English version. Any Central Government scheme is named in Hindi, which is meaningless syllables for non hindi speaking communities.
When Sri Annamalai or BJP claims that there is no imposition of Hindi , it may be true only for schools but when it comes to communication to masses nobody can deny hindi is being imposed day in and day out in our next street banks, offices or railway stations. It is beyond logic what a ticket in devanagari script is going to achieve in interior tamilnadu. If this is not Hindi imposition, then what is?
The BJP Government should walk the talk and enter the minds of tamilians by eliminating such communications in an alien language In the garb of official language. All central schemes should be conveyed in tamil.This is the least one expects and a basic courtesy ere an elected Union Government self certify that they are not imposing Hindi. The million dollar question is, will they change their colours?