1, 2 or 3? Why language is a ticking time bomb in Tamil Nadu amid Hindi pushback

Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin

Two languages or three? That is the question in Tamil Nadu. And, surrounding this question is a history of a language agitation against Hindi that dates back to 1937 and the 1960s, a students and youths struggle that lifted the fortunes of the Dravidian movement and eventually brought down the Congress government in the election of 1967.

Hindi is not mandatory under the National Education Policy, 2020, but politicians evoke memories of the language imposition from 60 years ago as they oppose the addition of a third regional language, other than English and mother tongue in school curriculum.

The fear is that studying a third language would not only be an extra burden on the students of Tamil Nadu, but would lead to the dominance of Hindi across India. Theoretically, the third language could be any regional Indian language, but in effect, the opponents feel, this would force children to opt for Hindi by default due to the paucity of teachers in other languages.

In the north of India, Sanskrit, and not any southern language, is the preferred choice as the third language as it is linguistically similar to Hindi.

The ongoing war between DMK leaders led by the Chief Minister MK Stalin and two union ministers, Amit Shah and Dharmendra Pradhan, over implementation of the new NEP 2020 has once again drawn attention to Hindi imposition. The state, which has maintained the two-language formula since 1967, sees the NEP 2020, which makes a third language compulsory, as a backdoor imposition of Hindi, and the union government’s refusal to release education funding (Samagra Shiksha Funds) until the state implements NEP 2020, as a form of political blackmail.

The imbroglio has affected 40 lakh students and 32000 staff. While Pradhan cites the DMK government's decision of not implementing the NEP 2020 as the reason, Stalin points out that denying the education funding to Tamil Nadu had affected the students of the state.

“Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan, who assumes that he is a king and speaks with arrogance, should mind his tongue. You, who have been deceiving (us) by not giving funds to Tamil Nadu, are saying Tamil Nadu MPs are uncivilised?” questioned Stalin on Monday after the Education Minister slammed the DMK in the Parliament for not implementing NEP 2020 in Tamil Nadu.

Why is it termed as Hindi imposition? With the third language compulsory, students by default would have to opt for Hindi as there are hardly any teachers for other languages. Also, many parents believe it would be more useful for their children to learn Hindi than any other Indian language.

Last week Shah challenged Stalin to offer engineering and medical courses in Tamil. “I have been asking for this for the last two years but to no avail. I hope today he will certainly do something,” Shah said at a function in Arakkonam.

Ironically, the engineering courses in Tamil were suggested and implemented by the M Karunanidhi government. Though initially it received good patronage, it tapered out subsequently. In 2023, the Anna University suspended the Tamil courses, but revived it following instructions from the state education ministry. Though medical education in Tamil was proposed by Karunanidhi in 2010, it did not take off as DMK went out of power in 2011. In 2022 the state Health Minister M Subramanian said efforts were being made to offer medical courses in Tamil, once the union government approved the opening of medical colleges in six districts. But nothing much has moved since then.

But Shah’s allegations are pegged on Stalin protesting in 2023 against conducting CRPF examinations in only Hindi and English. In 2024, following his criticism, 13 other regional languages were introduced for Central Armed Police Forces such as CRPF, BSF and CISF by the Union Home Ministry.

The first anti-Hindi agitation began in 1937 when Hindi was made compulsory in the Madras Presidency by the first Indian National Congress (INC) government led by C Rajagopalachari as its Chief Minister. After three years of protest it was withdrawn in 1940. Post Independence, Hindi was made the official language with English to continue as associate language for a term of 15 years. But non-Hindi speaking states protested against making Hindi the sole official language. DMK led the protest in Madras state. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was forced to enact a law in 1963 to ensure the use of English beyond 1965.

But not trusting the assurance anti-Hindi movement gained momentum in then Madras with the involvement of students and youths leading to rioting, looting, arson and deaths. Then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri then promised that English would continue to be the official language, to calm down the agitation. In 1967 DMK defeated the INC in the Assembly election and the latter never came back to power in Madras state, later, Tamil Nadu.

The Indira Gandhi government amended the Official Language Act to ensure indefinite use of regional language and English as the official languages and thereby a bilingual policy. Since then there were intermittent protests whenever there were covert or overt attempts to promulgate Hindi in the state.

Terming NEP 2020 as a form of ‘Hindi colonialism’ Stalin last week warned: “History is clear. Those who tried to impose Hindi on Tamil Nadu have either been defeated or later changed their stance and aligned with DMK. Tamil Nadu will not tolerate Hindi colonialism replacing British colonialism.”

However, faced with Amit Shah’s continuing stress on making Hindi the link language and Dharmendra Pradhan’s refusal to release educational fund to the tune of Rs 2,152 crore until NEP 2020 is implemented in the state, Stalin has upped the ante, with the support of other political parties in the state, except the BJP. The BJP on the other hand engaged in a signature campaign endorsing implementation of NEP 2020 in the state.

Lashing back, Stalin recently said: “Some entitled bigots brand us chauvinists and anti-nationals for the ‘crime’ of demanding Tamil’s rightful place in Tamil Nadu. Demanding linguistic equality is not chauvinism.”