Bengaluru: Congress supporters on Sunday staged a protest in Bengaluru against Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s call to culturally unify India with Hindi as it’s national language.
The protestors raised slogans like “Stop imposing Hindi”. They were also seen holding the placards which read, “We oppose Central government decisions” and “The Kannada language is superior in Karnataka. We love our culture. We don’t need your nature”.
Local Congress leader Manohar, who was present during the protest told ANI, “We are protesting against the Amit Shah statement about imposing Hindi on the people of the nation. Kannada is superior in Karnataka. South Indian languages are supreme in their respective states. If they try to suppress the Kannada language, all Kannadigas will oppose it and they should not try to impose such decisions.”
This comes a day after Shah on the occasion of Hindi Diwas appealed people to unify India with the county’s most widely spoken language, Hindi.
Shah’s call to culturally unify India with Hindi as its national language triggered a row when some opposition leaders trained guns on him demanding to reconsider his appeal as it “poses a danger to the national unity”.
Shah, in his address, appealed to people to accept Hindi as the national language to get connected while asserting that the growth of Hindi will never be at the cost of any other language and added that Hindi is the language of coexistence.
He said there was a unanimous consensus for Hindi as a national language in the Constituent Assembly, in spite of the Assembly’s sheer diversity.