Why no Tamil language promoting bodies in UP, asks MK Stalin
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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin (file photo)
Chennai: Amidst his intensifying campaign challenging the Centre's push for promoting Hindi and the three-language formula, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has harped on the role of an institution to promote Hindi in southern states and asked why such an institution was not established in North India to promote Tamil.
The bottom-line of Stalin's contention is that Hindi deserves no higher place than any other regional language of India and should not be thrust on non-Hindi speaking states.
Stalin in a post on X, questioned why an Uttar Bharat Tamil Prachar Sabha was never established in North India, while a Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha has existed for over a century to promote Hindi in southern states.
Stalin wrote in the post: “A century has passed since the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha was set up to make South Indians learn Hindi. How many Uttar Bharat Tamil Prachar Sabhas have been established in North India in all these years? The truth is, we never demanded that North Indians must learn Tamil or any South Indian language to ‘preserve’ them. All we ask is to #StopHindiImposition on us. If BJP-ruled states want to teach three languages or even 30, let them! Just leave Tamil Nadu alone!”
CM Stalin reiterated his opposition to the alleged imposition of Hindi in Tamil Nadu and other southern states, emphasising that Tamil Nadu has never insisted that northern states learn Tamil.
He further challenged the three-language policy, arguing that if students in North India are only required to learn two languages properly, why should students in South India be forced to learn a third?
In another X post, he criticized those advocating for a third language in Tamil Nadu: “Some guardians of lopsided policies, wailing in great concern, ask, ‘Why are you denying Tamil Nadu students the opportunity to learn a third language?’ Well, why don’t they first say which third language is being taught up north? If they had just taught two languages properly there, where’s the need for us to learn a third?”
Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has also strongly opposed the New Education Policy (NEP) and any form of Hindi imposition.
CM Stalin recently warned that implementing the NEP would set Tamil Nadu back by 2,000 years, asserting that the state would reject the policy even if the Union government offered Rs 10,000 crore, instead of the Rs 2000 crore that the Centre allegedly withheld for the state not implementing NEP.
He also criticized Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, accusing him of imposing Hindi through the NEP.
CM Stalin further highlighted what he called the discriminatory allocation of funds for language development. “Tamil is spoken by 8 crore people, yet the Union government has allocated only Rs 74 crore for its development. Meanwhile, Rs 1,488 crore has been allotted for Sanskrit, which is spoken by only a few thousand people”, he said.
As a state that opposes the concept of the Centre deciding the education policies of the state, Stalin has also been speaking vociferously for regional languages without elevating Hindi to a unique state.
He further said, “The Tamil Nadu government has consistently opposed the NEP and the three-language policy, preferring its existing two-language system -- Tamil and English. Even the principal opposition party, AIADMK, has backed this stance.“
However, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan accused CM Stalin of misrepresenting the NEP to sustain a political narrative.
He urged the Chief Minister to set aside political differences and focus on students’ interests.
Pradhan’s response followed a letter CM Stalin sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, objecting to the linking of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds with the PM SHRI Schools scheme.
The CM argued that these are separate Centrally sponsored programmes and that linking them is unfair. In his letter, CM Stalin urged PM Modi to immediately release Rs 2,152 crore in SSA funds for Tamil Nadu without tying them to the NEP.
He accused the Union government of using financial allocations as a tool to force states into compliance, calling it a violation of cooperative federalism.
(with inputs from IANS)
