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A day after Union home minister Amit Shah said Hindi, and not English, should be used by people from different states when they communicate with each other, former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Friday accused Shah and the Union government of ‘forcing their personal agenda’ on people.
“Central government and the Union home minister are actually trying to forcibly run their personal agendas. But they won’t succeed. People will teach them a lesson,” Kumaraswamy said, according to news agency ANI.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which governs both the Centre and Karnataka, has been accused by its critics of promoting Hindi at the cost of regional languages, even in states where it is not the primary language. Kumaraswamy, in October last year as well, accused the the southern state’s BJP government of ‘sidelining’ Kannada–the state’s official language– in favour of Hindi.
Also Read | Kumaraswamy slams Karnataka govt for ‘sidelining’ Kannada for Hindi
The southern states, including Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, have witnessed frequent protests against the alleged imposition of Hindi. IT hub Bengaluru, Karnataka’s capital, has seen agitations against the language being used on signboards of the Namma Metro–the city’s rapid transit system.
Also Read | ‘Imposition of Hindi’ in Bangalore Metro signboards irks Kannadigas
India does not have an official language, However, according to article 343(1) of the Constitution, ‘the official language of the Union of India shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.’
Meanwhile, the latest row erupted after Amit Shah, addressing the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee in Delhi, said ‘now the time has come to make the official language Hindi an important part of the national unity.’
“When citizens of India, who speak different languages, communicate with each other, it should be in ‘the language of India.’ Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English but not to local languages,” he said, according to a statement by the Union home ministry.
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