In a showdown with the Modi government for “intimidating” Tamil Nadu to accept the New Education Policy (NEP) and its three-language formula for release of Central funds for the state, Deputy Chief Minister and ruling DMK’s Youth Wing Secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, on Tuesday, warned that the BJP-led Union government’s haughtiness would only lead to another uprising against Hindi imposition.
“We are neither begging for alms nor your personal property, it is our legitimate right since it is the tax paid by the parents of the Tamil Nadu students,” he said while speaking at a massive protest demonstration by the DMK and its allies in Chennai, asserting that Tamil Nadu will never accept the three-language formula as the entry of Hindi would result in the obliteration of Tamil as was the case with Rajasthani, Bhojpuri and other languages in north India.
The protest demonstration was to register their condemnation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s stand on making NEP compliance a precondition for releasing funds. He had also questioned why Tamil Nadu is opposing the three-language formula unlike other states. He had further termed the state’s resistance as plain politics since NED does not impose Hindi but provides the opportunity for students to learn an additional language.
The Union government is not releasing Rs 2,152 crore pending dues to the state on the ground that it had to accept the PMSHRI schools and the NEP.
Tamil Nadu, which witnessed two major state-wide anti-Hindi protests in 1937 and in 1965, had been following the two-language formula (Mother tongue Tamil and English) since 1967 when the DMK came to power under the legendary CN Annadurai. Both the DMK and the AIADMK have been steadfast in the opposition to imposition of Hindi and because of this have not accepted the Navodaya schools so far.
Udhayanidhi made it clear that Tamils and the Tamil Nadu government could not be cowed down by intimidation. “Ours is not a government of slaves to sign on the dotted line… This the land of Periyar (rationalist social reformer EV Ramasamy), Anna (CN Annadurai) and Kalaignar (M Karunanidhi) with self respect. We can’t be subdued,” he added.
He appealed to one and all to come together to ‘defeat the designs of the fascists to destroy the education of the students and the Tamil language, which is our life’.