Though the subservient media in Tamil Nadu were reluctant to acknowledge that it was DMK President Kalaignar who first raised voice of protest against the Union Home Ministry directive to all departments and undertakings including banks that they ‘should use Hindi or Hindi and English with priority for Hindi’ in posting their communications on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and google, the national media, by and large, registered the truth.
As soon as Kalaignar’s statement was released to the media early in the forenoon on June 19, the electronic and print media in New Delhi and elsewhere sprang into action and media persons marched towards the office of the Union Home Ministry seeking clarification of the Union government on Kalaignar’s statement. The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju was the only responsible person available at that time and he was surrounded by media persons for his reaction. The national English and Hindi channels started telecasting/broadcasting Kalaignar’s statement from the forenoon on the day and along with the ‘clarification’ of the Union Minister of State in the afternoon as the top story of the day.
As his clarification was not convincing and seeking to cool tempers, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh immediately tweeted "The Home Ministry is of the view that all Indian languages are important. The Ministry is committed to promote all languages of the country".
Obviously on the Minister’s instruction a Home Ministry spokesperson said the Home Minister took note of the media reports that suggested government giving directive to use Hindi in official work. "The reports are incorrect and no such order has been issued," the spokesperson said.
All these developments took place on June 19, Thursday.
Even the English daily ‘Deccan Chronicle’, the Chennai edition of which is pro-Jayalalitha, had posted the following news at 9.06 pm on June 19 in its official website with the photographs of Kalaignar and Narendra Modi:-
“Government clarifies push for
Hindi after DMK objection
DC | June 19, 2014, 21.06 pm IST
DMK chief M Karunanidhi condemned MHA’s order of priority to Hindi on official social media interaction. Karunanidhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi instead to focus on development agenda.
“The Prime Minister should focus on development rather than on promoting Hindi,” the 90-year-old told a news channel on Thursday in Chennai.
The order by the Union Home Ministry stated that government departments and bureaucrats must use Hindi on social media for their official accounts.
"No one can deny it’s a beginning to impose Hindi against one's wish. This amounts to an attempt to treat non-Hindi speakers as second class citizens," said Karunanidhi. "Language battlefields have not yet dried. History has recorded anti-Hindi agitation," Mr Karunanidhi said.
Two Home Ministry circulars seeking to promote official language Hindi in the social media has raked up a controversy with DMK accusing the Centre of imposing the language on non-Hindi speaking sections.
While the government decision was attacked by DMK chief M Karunanidhi, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said he will promote use of Hindi in all official work and public life and his senior Rajnath Singh sought to down play the controversy by saying the Centre will promote all languages of the country.
The Home Ministry's official language department had issued a circular on May 27 asking all Ministries and Departments, public sector undertakings and banks to give prominence to Hindi on official accounts in social media.
"...all officers and employees who operate official accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Google, Youtube should use Hindi and English languages. Prominence should be given to Hindi," Director, official language, Avadesh Kumar Mishra wrote in the directive.
Another circular announced prize money of Rs 2,000 to two employees who do their official work mostly in Hindi. Rs 1,200 and Rs 600 will be given to the second and third position holders respectively.
Taking strong exception to government decision, DMK Chief M Karunanidhi said it was the beginning of "imposition of Hindi".
"Giving priority to Hindi will be construed as a first step towards attempt at creating differences among non-Hindi speaking people and making them second class citizens," the 90-year old leader, whose party spearheaded the anti-Hindi agitation in the 1960s in the state, said in a statement in Chennai.
Joining issue, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju today said the new government will promote use of Hindi in all departments and public life.He also said that promotion of Hindi language should not be seen as "undermining" other languages. "I have taken a decision that we will give priority to the promotion of Hindi in all communications in various departments and public life because it is our official language," Rijiju told reporters here.
Asserting that the Centre will give due importance to all languages, he said, "We have to progress with our identity, culture, language and diversity. We have to move together. So, promotion of Hindi language should not be seen as undermining other languages."
Seeking to cool tempers, Rajnath Singh tweeted "The Home Ministry is of the view that all Indian languages are important. The Ministry is committed to promote all languages of the country". A Home Ministry spokesperson said the Home Minister took note of the media reports that suggested government giving directive to use Hindi in official work. "The reports are incorrect and no such order has been issued," the spokesperson said”.
The financial daily ‘Mint’-Content partner ‘Wall Street Journal’ on June 20 published the following report filed by the international news agency ‘Reuters’ under the caption “Modi’s push for Hindi fails to cut ice with DMK’s Karunanidhi”-
“Modi’s push for Hindi fails
to cut ice with DMK’s Karunanidhi”-
“Since taking office as India’s Prime Minister last month, Narendra Modi has taken a clear stand in support of Hindi, pushing for it to replace English as the preferred language of the capital’s urbane and golf-playing bureaucrats, but the move has failed to cut ice with DMK chief M. Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu.
Hindi and English are India’s two official languages for federal government business, although India’s constitution recognises a total of 22 languages.
Modi’s government has ordered its officials to use Hindi on social media accounts and in government letters. Modi spoke in Hindi and used interpreters in meetings with South Asian leaders last month, and addressed the Bhutanese parliament in Hindi during his first official overseas trip last week.
But with more than half of India’s 1.2 billion people using another language as their mother tongue, the push for Hindi risks widening communication divides in a highly diverse country, especially in the southern and eastern states, where local languages or English are preferred. Chief of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Karunanidhi on Thursday (June 20) slammed India’s Home Ministry for its social media diktat. His party, born in 1949 of a southern secessionist movement, uses Tamil and English to communicate with voters.
“No one can deny it’s beginning to impose Hindi against one’s wish. This would be seen as an attempt to treat non-Hindi speakers as second-class citizens,” television channels quoted Karunanidhi as saying.
In Odisha, a member of the State Assembly was chastised this week for using Hindi during the question hour. The Speaker of the house ordered Kengam Surya Rao to make statements only in English or the local language, Odia.
Anti-Hindi protests in India date back to before the country gained independence in 1947 from former colonial ruler Britain. Hindi speakers are concentrated in India’s northern and central regions, home to the country’s two most populous states and where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) picked up most of its parliamentary seats in the election. It is the mother tongue of just over 40% of Indians, latest government data show.
In the 1960s, the DMK launched a campaign against the government’s plan to make Hindi the sole official language, during which Hindi books and effigies of a “Hindi demoness” were burnt on village bonfires.
“Hindi is our official language, we have to promote Hindi,” junior home minister KirenRijiju said on Thursday, following Karunanidhi’s criticism. “It doesn’t mean that we undermine the importance of regional languages.”
‘A different India’: The push for greater use of Hindi by Modi has been read partly as a move to break from the anglophone elite of the dynastic Congress party, which he thrashed in parliamentary polls in April and May. “He is trying to represent a different India, which is rural and small-town oriented,” said Ajay Gudavarthy, a politics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “That’s the group he campaigned to, and that’s the group he’s from.”
Senior members of the BJP cite some practical reasons too, saying Modi is more at ease in Hindi than English and does not wish to be misunderstood, particularly in interviews. The BJP has long championed Hindi as a uniting force for India. The Home Ministry last month ordered all bureaucrats to prioritize Hindi over English on official accounts on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet India’s booming social media scene remains dominated by English, with even Modi still mostly using that language to communicate with the 4.9 million people who follow him there. (Reuters).”
The dailies on June 20 prominently published Kalaignar’s statement on the clarifications of the Union Ministers. It was thereafter Jayalalitha woke up and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on the issue and other leaders of political parties in Tamil Nadu and national parties such as the CPM and CPI and leaders like Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Bahujan Samajwadi Party leader Mayawati and others raised their voice of opposition. There were editorials and articles by columnists on the issue published in various dailies thereafter.
There is no use in Jayalalitha and her supporters in grudging Kalaignar for the lead he has given to the national protest against imposition of Hindi. Because, that is the difference between a seasoned leader of the Dravidian movement and an
As soon as Kalaignar’s statement was released to the media early in the forenoon on June 19, the electronic and print media in New Delhi and elsewhere sprang into action and media persons marched towards the office of the Union Home Ministry seeking clarification of the Union government on Kalaignar’s statement. The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju was the only responsible person available at that time and he was surrounded by media persons for his reaction. The national English and Hindi channels started telecasting/broadcasting Kalaignar’s statement from the forenoon on the day and along with the ‘clarification’ of the Union Minister of State in the afternoon as the top story of the day.
As his clarification was not convincing and seeking to cool tempers, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh immediately tweeted "The Home Ministry is of the view that all Indian languages are important. The Ministry is committed to promote all languages of the country".
Obviously on the Minister’s instruction a Home Ministry spokesperson said the Home Minister took note of the media reports that suggested government giving directive to use Hindi in official work. "The reports are incorrect and no such order has been issued," the spokesperson said.
All these developments took place on June 19, Thursday.
Even the English daily ‘Deccan Chronicle’, the Chennai edition of which is pro-Jayalalitha, had posted the following news at 9.06 pm on June 19 in its official website with the photographs of Kalaignar and Narendra Modi:-
“Government clarifies push for
Hindi after DMK objection
DC | June 19, 2014, 21.06 pm IST
DMK chief M Karunanidhi condemned MHA’s order of priority to Hindi on official social media interaction. Karunanidhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi instead to focus on development agenda.
“The Prime Minister should focus on development rather than on promoting Hindi,” the 90-year-old told a news channel on Thursday in Chennai.
The order by the Union Home Ministry stated that government departments and bureaucrats must use Hindi on social media for their official accounts.
"No one can deny it’s a beginning to impose Hindi against one's wish. This amounts to an attempt to treat non-Hindi speakers as second class citizens," said Karunanidhi. "Language battlefields have not yet dried. History has recorded anti-Hindi agitation," Mr Karunanidhi said.
Two Home Ministry circulars seeking to promote official language Hindi in the social media has raked up a controversy with DMK accusing the Centre of imposing the language on non-Hindi speaking sections.
While the government decision was attacked by DMK chief M Karunanidhi, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said he will promote use of Hindi in all official work and public life and his senior Rajnath Singh sought to down play the controversy by saying the Centre will promote all languages of the country.
The Home Ministry's official language department had issued a circular on May 27 asking all Ministries and Departments, public sector undertakings and banks to give prominence to Hindi on official accounts in social media.
"...all officers and employees who operate official accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Google, Youtube should use Hindi and English languages. Prominence should be given to Hindi," Director, official language, Avadesh Kumar Mishra wrote in the directive.
Another circular announced prize money of Rs 2,000 to two employees who do their official work mostly in Hindi. Rs 1,200 and Rs 600 will be given to the second and third position holders respectively.
Taking strong exception to government decision, DMK Chief M Karunanidhi said it was the beginning of "imposition of Hindi".
"Giving priority to Hindi will be construed as a first step towards attempt at creating differences among non-Hindi speaking people and making them second class citizens," the 90-year old leader, whose party spearheaded the anti-Hindi agitation in the 1960s in the state, said in a statement in Chennai.
Joining issue, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju today said the new government will promote use of Hindi in all departments and public life.He also said that promotion of Hindi language should not be seen as "undermining" other languages. "I have taken a decision that we will give priority to the promotion of Hindi in all communications in various departments and public life because it is our official language," Rijiju told reporters here.
Asserting that the Centre will give due importance to all languages, he said, "We have to progress with our identity, culture, language and diversity. We have to move together. So, promotion of Hindi language should not be seen as undermining other languages."
Seeking to cool tempers, Rajnath Singh tweeted "The Home Ministry is of the view that all Indian languages are important. The Ministry is committed to promote all languages of the country". A Home Ministry spokesperson said the Home Minister took note of the media reports that suggested government giving directive to use Hindi in official work. "The reports are incorrect and no such order has been issued," the spokesperson said”.
The financial daily ‘Mint’-Content partner ‘Wall Street Journal’ on June 20 published the following report filed by the international news agency ‘Reuters’ under the caption “Modi’s push for Hindi fails to cut ice with DMK’s Karunanidhi”-
“Modi’s push for Hindi fails
to cut ice with DMK’s Karunanidhi”-
“Since taking office as India’s Prime Minister last month, Narendra Modi has taken a clear stand in support of Hindi, pushing for it to replace English as the preferred language of the capital’s urbane and golf-playing bureaucrats, but the move has failed to cut ice with DMK chief M. Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu.
Hindi and English are India’s two official languages for federal government business, although India’s constitution recognises a total of 22 languages.
Modi’s government has ordered its officials to use Hindi on social media accounts and in government letters. Modi spoke in Hindi and used interpreters in meetings with South Asian leaders last month, and addressed the Bhutanese parliament in Hindi during his first official overseas trip last week.
But with more than half of India’s 1.2 billion people using another language as their mother tongue, the push for Hindi risks widening communication divides in a highly diverse country, especially in the southern and eastern states, where local languages or English are preferred. Chief of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Karunanidhi on Thursday (June 20) slammed India’s Home Ministry for its social media diktat. His party, born in 1949 of a southern secessionist movement, uses Tamil and English to communicate with voters.
“No one can deny it’s beginning to impose Hindi against one’s wish. This would be seen as an attempt to treat non-Hindi speakers as second-class citizens,” television channels quoted Karunanidhi as saying.
In Odisha, a member of the State Assembly was chastised this week for using Hindi during the question hour. The Speaker of the house ordered Kengam Surya Rao to make statements only in English or the local language, Odia.
Anti-Hindi protests in India date back to before the country gained independence in 1947 from former colonial ruler Britain. Hindi speakers are concentrated in India’s northern and central regions, home to the country’s two most populous states and where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) picked up most of its parliamentary seats in the election. It is the mother tongue of just over 40% of Indians, latest government data show.
In the 1960s, the DMK launched a campaign against the government’s plan to make Hindi the sole official language, during which Hindi books and effigies of a “Hindi demoness” were burnt on village bonfires.
“Hindi is our official language, we have to promote Hindi,” junior home minister KirenRijiju said on Thursday, following Karunanidhi’s criticism. “It doesn’t mean that we undermine the importance of regional languages.”
‘A different India’: The push for greater use of Hindi by Modi has been read partly as a move to break from the anglophone elite of the dynastic Congress party, which he thrashed in parliamentary polls in April and May. “He is trying to represent a different India, which is rural and small-town oriented,” said Ajay Gudavarthy, a politics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “That’s the group he campaigned to, and that’s the group he’s from.”
Senior members of the BJP cite some practical reasons too, saying Modi is more at ease in Hindi than English and does not wish to be misunderstood, particularly in interviews. The BJP has long championed Hindi as a uniting force for India. The Home Ministry last month ordered all bureaucrats to prioritize Hindi over English on official accounts on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet India’s booming social media scene remains dominated by English, with even Modi still mostly using that language to communicate with the 4.9 million people who follow him there. (Reuters).”
The dailies on June 20 prominently published Kalaignar’s statement on the clarifications of the Union Ministers. It was thereafter Jayalalitha woke up and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on the issue and other leaders of political parties in Tamil Nadu and national parties such as the CPM and CPI and leaders like Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Bahujan Samajwadi Party leader Mayawati and others raised their voice of opposition. There were editorials and articles by columnists on the issue published in various dailies thereafter.
There is no use in Jayalalitha and her supporters in grudging Kalaignar for the lead he has given to the national protest against imposition of Hindi. Because, that is the difference between a seasoned leader of the Dravidian movement and an
impostor! r
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