Senior DMK leader Kanimozhi today clarified the position of her party on the contentious issue of three language policy, saying they are objecting to is the “imposition” of Hindi by the Centre and not the language per se.
Asked if Tamil and Hindi cannot co-exist in an exclusive interview, Ms Kanimozhi told NDTV, “Definitely languages can coexist”.
Today, Tamil Nadu, she said, has different people from different parts of country speaking different languages.
“Coexisting is not a problem, imposition is a problem,” she added. “We do not want to protect Tamil at the cost of any other language. And protecting Tamil is not about protecting an ideology,” she said.
Then, quoting Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, she said the way to destroy a race is to destroy its language.
“Today I can show you so many states that have lost their art, their culture, their language their films… Hindi had replaced their literature, films, their music. Why would I want that happen to any other language?” she said.
In this context, she also indicated that the north-south divide has been deepened by non-observance of one of the conditions when the education policy was formulated.
“When the rules were formulated, it was clear that the states in the north will learn one southern language and the southern states will learn one north Indian language,” Ms Kanimozhi told NDTV.
“Today, Kerala, Karnataka learn Hindi. Show me one north Indian state which has learnt any South Indian language,” she added.
Also, the three-language principle is not necessarily better, Ms Kanimozhi said.
“It is a myth that learning three languages is something great and only affluent children are able to do that… I am sure that English is there is communicate to the world and other states. You have to learn your mother tongue to understand who you are,” she said.
If there is a need, one can learn any language including Mandarin and Japanese, she said.
Tamil Nadu historically had a ‘two-language’ policy, teaching Tamil and English to the children in government schools. There have been massive anti-Hindi agitations in the 1930s and 1960s.
Now, as the BJP stepped up its push for the three-language education policy, planning a statewide campaign from March 1, The DMK said it was ready for a “language war”.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has declared that the state would not receive around Rs 2,400 crore in funds for the ongoing Samagra Siksha mission, unless it adopts the National Education policy in its entirety. Chief Minister MK Stalin responded that it was “blackmail”.
Amid the row, Union minister Amit Shah, who was in Tamil Nadu today, said he “apologised for not being able to speak Tamil, the world’s oldest language”.