Twitter seeks to #Stophindichauvinism
On Friday, MK Stalin of the DMK, noticed that signage on the Chittoor-vellore Highway and National Highway 77 in Tamil Nadu was written in Hindi and Tamil, and the English names had vanished. He accused the BJP of disrespecting the Tamils and of trying to bring in a “Hindi hegemony through the backdoor” into Tamil Nadu. Parties such as the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) threatened an agitation if such changes on the milestones continued. Since then, on Twitter at least, the question of language has become important again.
While it began with Tamil Nadu, many people, not just from the south of India, seemed to agree. Twitter users across the country have been vocal in pointing this out, using the hashtag #Stophindichauvinism. The spectre of Hindi chauvinism had also raised its head when the new ₹500 and ₹2,000 currency notes were introduced. These notes have the number written in Hindu-arabic numerals as well as in Devanagari. It is a departure from the Munshi-ayyangar formula, devised during the Constituent Assembly debates in which it was decided that India would have no national language and that states in which Hindi was not spoken could maintain international numerals.
In a country as diverse as India, where many people who are not from the Hindispeaking belt have had to face discrimination in cities like Delhi, the alarm over Hindi hegemony is not entirely unfounded. People from the northeast being asked if they are Chinese; people from all states in the south being labelled ‘Madrasi’ are stereotypes that non-hindi-speakers face every day.
With the rise of the right wing , whose rallying cry in the past has included the chauvinism of language along with that of religion, the fear of Hindi hegemony has been resurrected.
While the immediate impetus for the social media outcry may have been markers on Tamil Nadu milestones, voices from around the country are joining in. Perhaps it’s time to renew the idea of syncretism that India has always stood for, where uniformity is not a prerequisite for unity.