BJP-led Centre pays lip service to Tamil for votes: CM MK Stalin

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Wednesday accused the BJP-led union government of superficially supporting Tamil language to gain electoral advantage whilst labelling the ruling party at the Centre as Tamil's "enemy." In his communication to party members, which was part of his series addressing "all-time opposition to Hindi imposition," Stalin referenced DMK founder leader C N Annadurai's perspective on the matter.
In the past, Anna had clarified that the party's aim was not to stand against Hindi, but rather to secure equal status for all Indian languages, Tamil included.
Stalin asserted that despite BJP's claims about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's high regard for Tamil and their stance on the 3-language formula benefiting state languages, the stark disparity in funding between Tamil and Sanskrit demonstrates their antagonistic stance towards Tamil.
According to data from the Union Education ministry, between 2014 and 2023, the central government allocated Rs 2,435 crore to the Central Sanskrit University and the National Sanskrit University, whilst the Central Institute of Classical Tamil received merely Rs 167 crore during the same timeframe. The financial support and expenditure for promoting Sanskrit and Hindi has significantly increased over this period.
"The union government, out-and-out, is functioning with a feeling of linguistic hegemony and pays mere lip service to Tamil for the sake of votes," the chief minister alleged.
The central government, under BJP's leadership, is not only denying Tamil Nadu its rightful funds but also failing to allocate resources for Tamil language development. The government appears to be undermining Tamil and other regional languages by promoting Hindi and Sanskrit as dominant languages. The DMK president cautioned against such language imposition, suggesting that historical examples from across the world demonstrate the adverse effects of such policies.
"All Indian languages including Tamil listed in the 8th schedule of the Constitution are India's national languages," he said.
However, claiming Hindi alone as the national language reflects a sense of dominance.
Claiming that Sanskrit is India's root language is an "attempt to consign us to servitude." If Sanskrit is taken as the root language, it meant that all other languages originated only from it. "That is, they are trying to establish that all the languages in India had their roots in Sanskrit. It was linguist Robert Caldwell who had, 175 years ago, by way of his studies had made it known to the world that Dravidian languages including Tamil had unique characteristics," Stalin said.
Stalin raised a question regarding the central government's lack of initiative in establishing educational facilities to teach Tamil and other South Indian languages to residents of northern states on March 4.