Hindi is not India’s national language, will never let it happen: Cong leader Siddaramaiah

Asserting that Hindi is not India’s national language, formerCM and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday accused the ruling BJP of trying to unleash its agenda of “cultural terrorism” against nonHindi speaking states.

Taking offence to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s comment regarding the official language, the Leader of Opposition in the assembly accused him of betraying the former’s home state Gujarat and mother-tongue Gujarati for Hindi, for his political agenda.Shah on Thursday said Hindi should be accepted as an alternative to English and not to local languages.

Presiding over the 37th meeting of the Parliamentary Official Language Committee, Shah had said PM Modi has decided that the medium of running the government is the official language and this will definitely increase the importance of Hindi.

“As a Kannadiga, I take strong offence to @ HMOIndia @AmitShah’s comment on Official language & medium of communication. Hindi is not our National Language & we will never let it to be,” Siddaramaiah tweeted with the tagline AgainstHindiImposition” Stating that linguistic diversity is the essence of our country and we will respect each other’s sentiments, the former CM said pluralism is what has held our nation together and any attempt to undo this will be met with strong opposition.

“Imposing Hindi is a sign of coercive federalism rather than cooperative federalism. Myopic view of BJP regarding our languages needs to be corrected and their opinions are derived from pseudo-nationalists like Savarkar,” Siddaramaiah added.