Rajya Sabha MPs from Tamil Nadu allege ‘imposition’ of Hindi

New Delhi: Rajya Sabha MPs from Tamil Nadu on Friday accused the Centre of imposing the Hindi language on the state amid the escalating row between the state government and Centre over the implementation of the three-language formula outlined in the National Education Policy.

The Tamil Nadu government and Centre have been at loggerheads over the implementation of the new National Education Policy and the three-language formula proposed under it.

Participating in the discussion on the working of the Ministry of Home Affairs, MDMK chief Vaiko alleged that the state was being “victimised” by the Home Ministry, which releases disaster relief funds.

“The Minister of Home Affairs who is releasing the disaster relief funds has victimised our state just because we are against your Hindutva policy, RSS policy and imposition of Hindi and Sanskrit,” Vaiko said.

Asserting that Tamil is the mother tongue of nearly 120 million people living in more than 114 countries of the world besides India, he said, “I would like to ask the Home Minister when he visited the first time, he said Hindi will be definitely imposed, then an agitation started”.

Vaiko further called himself a “product of anti-Hindi agitation”.