<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">Hindi is still a thorn in Tamil Nadu's flesh<span class=""></span></h1><h1 class=""><span class="">Sruthisagar Yamunan</span>
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<img src="http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/02243/Sunday_Anti_Hindi_2243259f.jpg" class="" alt="The 1965 anti-Hindi agitation." title="The 1965 anti-Hindi agitation." height="440" width="622"> </div>
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<div class="">The Hindu</div>
The 1965 anti-Hindi agitation.
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<div class="">TOPICS</div><br></div>
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<h2>But people's animosity towards the language has mellowed over the years</h2>
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<p class=""> Last week, the political scene in Tamil Nadu saw a
churning with the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, led by Vaiko,
walking out of the National Democratic Alliance.</p><p class="">Among
the reasons Mr. Vaiko gave for his decision was “a consistent effort by
the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to impose the culture of the
North on Tamil Nadu.” In particular was the fear that Tamils would be
made to learn Hindi and Sanskrit through official means, something that
hd met with violent reactions in the 1960s in the State.</p><p class="">When
the Centre wanted government departments to use Hindi in social media,
protests erupted immediately in the State. The then Chief Minister,
Jayalalithaa, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said the
decision was against the spirit of the Official Languages Act, 1963.</p><p class="">Perhaps,
one of the major reasons the Congress was shunted out of power in the
State in 1967 was imposition of Hindi. The State government brought in
paramilitary forces and clamped down on the anti-Hindi agitators, and
the party never again came to power.</p><p class="">Back in 1937,
when the Madras Presidency government led by C. Rajagopalachari insisted
on compulsory learning of Hindi in the State, the Dravidian movement,
then in the form of the Justice Party, got a major campaign agenda. For
three years till the policy was revoked in 1940, the agitations were
sustained in almost every part of the Presidency, in the process making
its leader, E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar), the tallest leader of the Dravidian
movement.</p><p class="">In 1965, when the 15-year time frame to
make Hindi the only official language was about to expire, Tamil Nadu
again led the agitations. By this time, with the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK) gaining ground, imposition of Hindi was part of the
narrative of the Aryan-Dravidian divide — the northern Aryans attempting
to invade the cultural space of the southern Dravidians. It took an
assurance from the then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, that
English would continue as the second official language as long as
non-Hindi-speaking people wanted it, to quell the protests.</p><p class="">Political
commentators argue that years of agitations against Hindi have clearly
had an impact on the psyche of the people of Tamil Nadu. A common view
is that while the people of the other southern States learn Hindi along
with their native language, those of Tamil Nadu are fanatical about
their language choice, which is a consequence of the larger political
narrative.</p><p class="">However, while Tamil Nadu political
parties have consistently opposed the “imposition” of Hindi, the State’s
policy, all through the decades, has been to make learning of Tamil
“compulsory” in schools.</p><p class="">In 2006, the DMK government
passed the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act, through which school students
had to compulsorily learn the language from Class I. The year 2015-16
will be crucial as the first batch which began learning the language in
2006 will face the Class X public examinations, making it a test of
efficiency of the policy.</p><p class="">But academics feel that
with over two decades of globalisation and the advancement in learning
technology, the animosity against Hindi had mellowed on the ground. So
much so that social scientists like C. Lakshmanan of the Madras
Institute of Development Studies feel there is a growing interest among
the people to learn multiple languages.</p><p class="">While he is
opposed to the idea of “imposing” a language, Mr. Lakshmanan says the
Tamil Nadu’s government’s policies have made it difficult for people to
get access to other languages.</p><p class="">“Many government
schools do not have Hindi teachers. Learning a language outside the
school system is a costly affair. So even if someone is willing to
learn, the system discourages them,” he says.</p><p class="">He says
that while the political rhetoric on Tamil has been strong, many had
preferred English to Tamil in education, thus helping themselves join
the mainstream without the need for Hindi. This was sometimes to the
detriment of Tamil.</p><p class="">“But Hindi, spoken widely in the
country, is a means to power,” he says. In that sense, he feels the BJP
will gain if it facilitates learning of the language without imposing
it.</p><p class="">Writer A. Marx says politically, the Tamil
language issue has ceased to be an electoral issue, though it continues
to be an emotive issue.</p><p class="">In 1965, the DMK was the only
face of the anti-Hindi agitations, giving it the full benefit of the
anti-Congress mood. In 2014, all Tamil parties have a common policy on
the language issue, giving no one a clear advantage.</p><p class="">Mr.
Marx says the anti-Hindi mood is actually more vigorous in the North
than in the South at the moment. “It is people speaking non-Hindi
languages in the North who have come down heavily on the BJP this time,”
he says.</p><p class="">While the Dravidian parties opposed Hindi,
he says, they had a logical language policy nevertheless with the
constant emphasis on learning English, ensuring that Tamils were not
left behind in the development story.</p><p class=""><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/sunday-anchor/hindi-and-tamil-nadu/article6689448.ece">http://www.thehindu.com/sunday-anchor/hindi-and-tamil-nadu/article6689448.ece</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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