DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday (February 27, 2025) charged that the push for a monolithic Hindi identity “killed ancient mother tongues.” Languages that gave space for Hindi eventually got lost without any trace, he claimed.
In a social media post, Mr. Stalin called upon “sisters and brothers from other States” and asked if they were aware as to how many Indian languages Hindi has “swallowed”. He went on to answer the question saying Bhojpuri, Maithili, Awadhi, Braj, Bundeli, Garhwali, Kumaoni, Magahi, Marwari, Malvi, Chhattisgarhi, Santhali, Angika, Ho, Kharia, Khortha, Kurmali, Kurukh, Mundari and many more were now “gasping for survival”.
Contending that the push for a monolithic Hindi identity was killing ancient mother tongues, Mr. Stalin claimed that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were “never just Hindi heartlands” and that their “real languages are now relics of the past.”
Mr. Stalin, also the son of the late DMK patriarch and former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, said Tamil Nadu resisted because “we know where this ends”.
Sharing a few words in Tamil in his social media post, Mr. Stalin said Tamil woke up and the culture of the Tamils was saved. “Some languages gave space for Hindi. Those languages got lost without any trace,” Mr. Stalin said.
Letter to DMK cadre
Meanwhile, in his third letter to the DMK party cadre on the issue of imposition of Hindi, Mr. Stalin said even political parties that had been consistently opposing the DMK in the political arena were against Hindi imposition.
Countering the BJP and its supporters’ argument that the three-language policy did not mandate Hindi or Sanskrit and that any regional language from India could be learnt as the third language, Mr. Stalin pointed out that a look at the said formula in most States showed that Hindi or Sanskrit was given priority.
He further stated that barring the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where there were Tamils, the Tamil language did not feature anywhere.
“We cannot say how long it will last. In BJP-ruled Rajasthan, it came to light that Urdu teachers are replaced by Sanskrit teachers, which reflects language fascism. If Tamil Nadu accepts the three-language formula, as in the case of northern States, the mother tongue will be boycotted and a scheme for ‘Sanskritisation’ would be implemented in the future,” Mr. Stalin alleged.
“Anna [former Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai] enacted a law to adopt a two-language policy half a century ago to ensure that in Tamil soil, there is no place for those who think of thwarting the Tamil culture and imposing Aryan culture through Sanskrit and Hindi,” he said.
Mr. Stalin pointed out that Tamil was a classical, ancient language, citing the findings from Keeladi and other excavations, and that Tamil could not be destroyed through Hindi or by an indirect imposition of Sanskrit.
“Then why are we opposing it? Periyar said through Hindi, Tamil won’t be destroyed, but Tamil culture would be destroyed. Recently, India’s Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar said the best way to conquer a territory is to overtake its culture, destroy its language. That is the policy of the BJP government at the Centre,” Mr. Stalin alleged.
The Dravidian movement is acting as a shield safeguarding Tamil, by thwarting the attempts of invasion by a dominant language, he said.
