‘Totally absurd’: Udhayanidhi slams Shah's message on Hindi Diwas

The remarks come days after Udhayanidhi Stalin stoked a massive political row by calling for the ‘eradication’ of Sanatana Dharma.

Published on: Sep 14, 2023, 18:42:33 IST

By HT News Desk | Written by Aryan Prakash

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Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Thursday hit out at Union home minister Amit Shah's statement calling Hindi as the one uniting the diversity of all language on the occasion of ‘Hindi Diwas’. The remarks come days after he stoked a massive political row by calling for the ‘eradication’ of Sanatana Dharma.

“I strongly condemn the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah claiming that Hindi is the uniting force of India and it is empowering other regional languages. Hindi is spoken only in four or five states in the Country and hence the statement of Amit Shah is totally absurd. It is only another version of imposing Hindi under the guise of generating livelihood”, the son of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin said in a post on social platform X.

Tamil Nadu youth welfare and sports development minister Udhayanidhi Stalin. (ANI file)

“While we are speaking Tamil here, Kerala speaks Malayalam. Where does Hindi merge with and empower us? Amit Shah should stop oppressing non-Hindi languages by calling them just regional languages. #StopHindiImposition”, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader added.

BJP slams Udhayanidhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party hit back at Udhayanidhi over his remark. Tamil Nadu BJP vice president Narayanan Thirupathy said, “ He (Udhayanidhi Stalin) doesn't know anything, he has proved that by Sanatana Dharma and Hindi language issues...Amit Shah did not say anything wrong, he said Hindi empowers all languages and there is nothing wrong in that”.

"Hindi is our official language...Udhayanidhi Stalin is wrong...nobody can impose any language on anyone...Udhayanidhi Stalin doesn't have any maturity to talk about all these things", the BJP leader was quoted by ANI as saying.

‘Govt giving undue, unfair advantage to Hindi’: Stalin

Udhayanidhi's party DMK has been fighting for several decades against what it calls ‘imposition of Hindi’. In June this year, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu had accused the Centre of giving ‘undue’ and ‘unfair’ advantage to Hindi over other Indian languages, this in wake of a recent circular by a public sector insurance company for implementation of Hindi.

In its circular, The New India Assurance Company Ltd had directed all its department in-charges to comply with the norms issued by the Centre asking for the implementation of official languages in all offices. The company had listed out 31 guidelines for Hindi implementation as part of the annual programme issued by the Union home ministry’s department of official languages.

“Publish Hindi in house magazine of your region regularly…,” one of the guidelines read. “Ensure the purchase of Hindi books and maintain the Hindi Library in the regional officer in an orderly manner.”

MK Stalin, Udhayanidhi's father and chief minister had called for immediate withdrawal of the circular.

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