DMK MP and party’s Deputy General Secretary Kanimozhi on Thursday accused the Centre of ‘imposing’ Hindi in Tamil Nadu after sharing a photo of a Chennai railway station nameboard that she said had been “changed from English to Hindi”.
Posting on X, Kanimozhi wrote, “It started in Kallakudi and continues to Chennai Park. They are not going to stop imposing it, and we are not going to stop opposing it”.
Along with the post, she shared an image of the Park Town suburban railway station board near Chennai’s MGR Central, objecting to what she described as the replacement of predominantly English signage with Hindi.
Kanimozhi’s remarks came amid renewed tensions between the DMK and the Union government over language policy. The party has repeatedly alleged that the Centre is pushing Hindi in non-Hindi-speaking states through administrative changes and education policy.
Recently, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief MK Stalin reiterated that there was “no place” for Hindi in the southern state.
Speaking on Language Martyrs Day, Stalin recalled Tamil Nadu’s historic resistance to Hindi imposition and said the state had “unitedly struggled against Hindi every time it was imposed”.
“A state that loved its language like its life, unitedly struggled against Hindi imposition; protested with the same intensity every time it was imposed. There is no place for Hindi then, now and forever (in Tamil Nadu). I pay my grateful respects to those martyrs who gave their precious lives for Tamil. No more lives will be lost in the language war; our love for Tamil will never die! We shall oppose Hindi imposition forever,” Stalin had said in a social media post.
Tamil Nadu follows the two-language formula of Tamil and English. The DMK has also accused the Centre of promoting Hindi through the National Education Policy 2020 and other administrative measures, a charge the ruling party said threatens the state’s linguistic autonomy.
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