Madurai: Condemning the Hindi language imposition on south Indian states, Madurai’s member of parliament Su Venkatesan responded strongly to a letter addressed to him by the ministry of culture, that was entirely written in Hindi.
He advised the ministry officials not to resort to such provocative measures in the future.
Addressing culture minister (independent charge) Prahlad Patel in a letter on Sunday, Venkatesan wrote that he could not understand the content of the letter, except its number written in numerals. “The format enclosed in it is in English. From that, I could assume the letter is for asking MPs to make recommendations for ‘Gandhi Peace Prize’,” he wrote in the reply.
In the letter, the CPI (M) MP wrote that at least the officials of the Ministry of Culture should have sensitivity on the issue keeping in mind the ‘multicultural and multi-lingual heritage of this great nation.’
“I doubt whether this kind of approach is deliberate on part of the Government of India to implement their project of imposing Sanskrit and Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states of India particularly Tamil Nadu,” the letter read.
Stating that the state of Tamil Nadu has a unique history of fighting such attempts to impose Hindi, Venkatesan added: “We would not get tired and fight the attempts to weaken our resolve to protect our identity and great culture.”