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Annadurai on dangers of Hindi fanaticism </h1>
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December 27, 2017 22:46 IST
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December 28, 2017 00:35 IST
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<p>The Chief Minister of Madras, Mr. C.N. Annadurai, has expressed the
view that if the Centre had only introduced the Official Languages
(Amendment) Bill without the resolution as amended in accordance with
the Congress Party’s recommendations it would have been certainly of
some help to non-Hindi-speaking people. Mr. Annadurai said although the
Bill itself was watered down, it was helpful to the extent that it did
not try to do away with English within a specified period and it gave
the right to the non-Hindi-speaking people to continue using English.
This was better than what existed previously. But the resolution in a
sense tried to take away by the left hand what was given by the right
hand. The provision relating to the use of either English or Hindi for
competitive examinations would seriously put the non-Hindi speaking
people at a disadvantage. Mr. Annadurai who was talking to your
correspondent said that the Government could have solved the problem by a
very simple measure providing for the continued use of English.
Apparently, a detailed Bill and a resolution resulted in pressure from
Hindi-speaking people. What seemed to have been forgotten by those who
put pressure and also yielded to pressure was that the Bill was meant
only to implement the assurances given by the two former Prime Ministers
to the non-Hindi-speaking people. It was because of the Madras
Government’s persuasion that the Official Languages Amendment Draft
Bill, which was circulated to the States, and which was an elaborate one
including almost all the provisions in the resolution on the language
policy, was later split up into a Bill and a resolution.</p>
</div><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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