India beyond language politics now, says Shah
Union Home Minister Amit Shah criticized Tamil Nadu's DMK government for its stance on Hindi, pledging to promote all Indian languages and address local course translations.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday criticised the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)-led Tamil Nadu government in Parliament for “spreading poison” on the issue of Hindi, saying that the Centre was committed to promoting all Indian languages and that no attempt should be made to divide the nation on the basis of tongues.
Shah also announced that, from December this year, he will use local languages while officially communicating with states and attacked Tamil Nadu for not translating medical and engineering courses into Tamil.
In a nearly two hours reply to a discussion on the working of the home ministry in the Rajya Sabha, Shah also spoke on a range of issues related to national security, hailed the government’s “zero-tolerance policy” on terror and separatism, and said India was in the safe hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He also reiterated his vow to end Maoism by March 31 next year and said the abrogation of Article 370 had quelled terrorism in Kashmir.
Touching upon the issue of official language, which falls under the home ministry, Shah attacked the DMK.
His comments came against the backdrop of a spiralling row between the DMK and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over language, and a day before meeting on delimitation.
I want to clarify certain things so that people trying to divide the country in the name of language don’t get the opportunity to spread their agenda. There is no competition between Hindi and any other Indian language. Hindi is a friend to all Indian languages. Hindi makes every regional language strong. Every Indian language also strengthens Hindi,” Shah said.
The minister said the Modi government made special provisions to promote all Indian languages. “The government of Narendra Modi, under the ambit of official languages department, has set up the Bharatiya Bhasha Anubhag which will work to promote the use of all Indian languages, whether it is Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese or Bengali,” he said.
There is an act for translation from Hindu and English, Shah said. “I want to make an announcement. From December onwards, I am going to communicate with any citizen, chief minister, minister or parliamentarian of a state, while writing letters, only in their language.”
This, the home minister said, would be a strong response to those “running a shop in the name of language to cover up their corruption”. Every Indian language is a “jewel” of Indian culture, he said.
Shah said attempts were being made to create an impression that the Centre was hostile to the language of the southern states. “How is this possible? We also come from the states. I come from Gujarat. Nirmalaji comes from Tamil Nadu. What are they even talking about?”
Attacking the Tamil Nadu government, Shah said the Centre was pursuing the state to start medical and engineering courses in Tamil for two years but the state government had done nothing about it.
“When we will come to power, we will devise medical and engineering courses in Tamil Nadu in the Tamil language. I want to tell these people spreading poison, a Tamilian may have to work in Gujarat or Kashmir or Delhi. You take the language as a shield to hide your scams and corruption? We will expose you by going to every village,” he added.
Tamil Nadu has strongly opposed the New Education Policy, and said that the three-language policy is a tactic to impose Hindi in a state with a strong regional identity. Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan have sparred repeatedly over language and the implementation of NEP in the state. Language has long been an emotive issue for the state that was rocked by anti-Hindi agitation in the 1960s. The issue also rocked Parliament repeatedly.
Earlier, Trinamool Congress MPs staged a walkout from Rajya Sabha after the House did not take up the question hour and private members’ bills and instead resumed the discussion on the working of the Home Ministry.
On the issue of Kashmir, the home minister said people tend to ask what changed because of removing Article 370, which used to bestow special status to the region and was scrapped in 2019, adding that he was here to show what had changed. “Article 370 was the basis of separatism in Kashmir. But I also thank the architects of the Constitution, they made the provision temporary, and the way to abrogate it was also included in the article,” Shah said.
The minister said the issue of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, left-wing extremism and insurgency in the Northeast were among the biggest challenges for India. “Around 92,000 citizens were killed in four decades. No organised effort was done to deal with these and the Modi government did it.”
Terror incidents dipped from 7,214 to 2,242 in the last 10 years and there was a 70% decline in total fatalities due to terrorism in this period, Shah said. Death of civilians declined by 81% while casualties among security forces have fallen by 50% in this period, he added.
Between 2010 and 2014, on average, there were 26,065 incidents of stone throwing in Kashmir Valley, while there were none during 2024, the minister said. There are no general strikes in Kashmir in the past one year, compared to 132 in the same period, Shah said.
“Nearly 6,000 people were injured and 112 died due to stone throwing. Now nobody throws stones, so there is no question of any casualty. Uri and Pulwama attacks happened but, within ten days we retaliated with surgical strikes,” he said.
Referring to left-wing extremism, the home minister said many areas may have lacked development because the country gained its independence after a long period but that didn’t mean that “some factions can be allowed to question the very system of the country or accept the nation’s Constitution”.
“Just look at the guts of these people, who created a red corridor from Pashupati to Tirupati and captured several districts and police stations. They ran a parallel currency and parallel stamp papers. There was no stopping them. Now I can tell his house that by March 31 2026, Naxalism will come to an end,” the minister said.
He was speaking a day after at least 30 Maoists and a policeman were killed in twin encounters in the Bijapur and Kanker districts of Chhattisgarh — action that took the number of rebels killed in the state this year across the 100-mark amid an uptick in anti-Left Wing Extremism (LWE) operations.
Shah said speedy development was taking place in Maoist-affected areas, with new roads and mobile connectivity, along with health care facilities.
Talking about the North-East, Shah said the region was by and large peaceful. Ever since the Modi government came to power, a new era of development was ushered in, he said. On Manipur, Shah said he will speak in detail when the government seeks Parliament’s nod for the imposition of President’s Rule, but added that talks had started between various factions.
“When the government will seek Parliament’s nod for imposition of the President’s rule in Manipur, the government will give all details on developments in the state,” Shah said.
“We have signed about 19 peace accords since 2019, while about 10,000 militants have surrendered in this period in the North-East,” he said.
DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadura, in a post on X, said, “Amit Shah while speaking in the parliament says he has written to TN govt to translate professional college books in TN. Mr. Amit Shah should be updated when he speaks about Tamil Nadu. Dr.Kalaignar during his 2006 tenure has translated Engineering books in Tamil. We have a mechanical engineering course entirely in Tamil.”
Congress MP Manickam Tagore said, “ Union home minister Amit Shah always gets confused and confuses other people also. Tamil Nadu is against the imposition of a language, the way they are stopping ₹250 crores (for Tamil Nadu) is wrong...this is an attack on Tamil Nadu students...Amit Shah always links some kind of corruption to everything as if BJP is not corrupt at all...”
