Will never compromise on Kannada, says K’taka CM
BSY says Kannada to remain state’s principal language, DMK warns of agitation in Tamil Nadu
NEW DELHI: Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday underlined Kannada is Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Karnataka’s principal language and promised he will never “compromise its importance” days after his party leader and Union home minister Amit Shah made a pitch for Hindi as India’s unifying language.
The pitch has drawn criticism from politicians in south India, where Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) threatened an agitation across Tamil Nadu over the issue on September 20.
Shah on Saturday said “unity in diversity” is India’s defining trait, but added the country needed a language that it could
All official languages in our country are equal. However, as far as Karnataka is concerned, #Kannada is the principal language.
BS YEDIYURAPPA, Karnataka CM I am supporting Hindi as the national language as most of the people of our country speak
Hindi.
BIPLAB KUMAR DEB, Tripura CM
be identified with globally. “Today, if there is one language that can bind the nation, it is Hindi, the country’s most widely-spoken language,” said Shah at a function to mark Hindi Divas.
In a tweet, Yediyurappa said all official languages in the country are equal but added Kannada is Karnataka’s principal language. “We will never compromise its importance and are committed to promote Kannada and our state’s culture,” he tweeted.
In Chennai, the DMK said it will hold protests at all district headquarters in the state to press Shah to take back his remark on Hindi.
DMK chief M K Stalin, who chaired a meeting of the party in Chennai on Monday, condemned the Centre’s “impetuous and reckless manner of imposing Hindi”.
Actor-turned-politician Kamal Hassan released a video on Twitter warning that any attempt to impose Hindi could trigger an agitation “far bigger” than the 2017 protest against the Supreme Court’s order to ban a traditional Tamil bull-taming sport, Jallikattu.
Hassan held a replica of Constitution’s preamble and the Ashok pillar and said when the country became a republic in 1950, a promise was made to the people and the government has to keep that promise.
“Unity in diversity is a promise that we made when we made India into a Republic. Now, no Shah, Sultan or Samrat must renege on that promise. We respect all languages, but our mother language will always be Tamil,” said the Makkal Needhi Maiam leader.
“What people across the country have refused to give up is their language and culture.”
He said most Indians do not sing the national anthem in their own languages but in Bengali. “The reason we are happy to do so is because the author of those verses embraced and acknowledged the importance of the languages and cultures that make India and accorded them their due respect.”
In Agartala, Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Monday said that those opposing Hindi as the national language do not love the country.
He made it clear that he was not against English or trying to impose Hindi.
“.... I am supporting Hindi as the national language as most of the people of our country speak Hindi,” he said.
He added had the Britishers not ruled India for 200 years, there would have been no use of English in official works in the country.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal BJP is in a fix over party president Amit Shah pitching for Hindi and is unable to openly support the statement fearing that it might dent the party’s increasing mass base in Bengal.
The state BJP unit is apprehensive that the issue might snowball into a major political issue as Trinamool Congress went hammer and tongs on Shah’s Hindi Divas tweet accusing the saffron party of pushing its policy of imposing Hindi, sources in it said.