CHENNAI:
Tamil
Nadu sports minister
Udhayanidhi Stalin
on Thursday condemned Union home minister Amit Shah’s statement that “
Hindi
served as the unifying force” in India.
In a post on microblogging site X (formerly Twitter), Udhayanidhi Stalin “strongly condemned” Amit Shah’s statement that Hindi was empowering other regional
languages
.
Shah had said that Hindi played an unprecedented role in uniting the country during difficult times. Udhayanidhi called the comments “absurd.”
“Hindi is spoken only in four or five states in the country and hence the statement of Amit Shah is totally absurd. It is only another version of imposing Hindi under the guise of generating livelihood,” said Udhayanidhi.
Amit Shah had said Hindi would pave the way to make regional languages stronger.
Udhayanidhi questioned Amit Shah’s statement by quoting the examples of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
“While we are speaking Tamil here, Kerala speaks
Malayalam
. Where does Hindi merge with and empower us? Amit Shah should stop oppressing non-Hindi languages by calling them just regional languages,” said Udhayanidhi.
