Hammering the Delhi Police for terming Bengali as Bangladeshi language in an official communication, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and ruling DMK president M K Stalin on Monday described it as a direct insult to the very language in which our national anthem is composed and an assault on non-Hindi languages.
The Delhi Police calling Bengali as Bangladeshi is not an inadvertent error or slips but betrays the arrogance and dark mindset of the Modi government, he said in a social media post.
“The Delhi Police, under the Union Home Ministry, has described Bengali as a “Bangladeshi language”. This is a direct insult to the very language in which our National Anthem was written. Such statements are not inadvertent errors or slips. They expose the dark mindset of a regime that consistently undermines diversity and weaponises identity,” he wrote on ‘X’.
Since Tamil Nadu has been resisting Hindi imposition through the New Education Policy (NEP), this issue has come in handy for the ruling DMK to paint the BJP as a party promoting Hindi hegemony at the expense of languages in various states. And Stalin prides his government as a bulwark against the Union Government’s to impose Hindi.
His government has also moved the Supreme Court to direct the Union Government to release Rs 2,150 crore SSA fund, withheld for not acceding to implement the three-language policy.
The Chief Minister, expressing solidarity with his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee, made it clear that she would give a befitting response to this attack on the language and people of West Bengal.
“In the face of this assault on non-Hindi languages, Hon’ble MamataOfficial Didi stands as a shield for the language and people of West Bengal. She will not let this attack pass without a fitting response,” read the post.
This provides an opportunity for Stalin, an important pillar of the INDIA block, to build bridges with the TMC and also enlist support in his crusade against Hindi-Sanskrit imposition and discrimination of Tamil and other languages.