Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President M K Stalin on Thursday said demanding linguistic equality is not chauvinism and alleged that the “true chauvinists and anti-nationals are the Hindi zealots” who believe their entitlement is natural but resistance is treason.

Stalin, in a social media post said: “When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. I am reminded of this famous quote when some entitled bigots brand us chauvinists and anti-nationals for the ‘crime’ of demanding Tamil’s rightful place in Tamil Nadu.” 

Further, he said: “The very people who glorify Godse’s ideology have the audacity to question the patriotism of DMK and its government that contributed the highest amount of funds during the Chinese aggression, Bangladesh liberation war, and Kargil war, while their ideological forefather is the one who assassinated ‘Bapu’ Gandhi.” 

Also, he said: “Demanding Linguistic equality is not chauvinism. Do you want to know what Chauvinism looks like? Chauvinism is naming the three criminal laws that govern 140 crore citizens in a language that Tamils cannot even pronounce or comprehend by reading. Chauvinism is treating the state that contributes the most to the nation as second-class citizens and denying its fair share for refusing to swallow the poison called #NEP. Imposition of anything breeds enmity. Enmity threatens unity. Hence, the true chauvinists and anti-nationals are the Hindi zealots who believe their entitlement is natural but our resistance is treason.” 

Separately, writing to party workers flaying Hindi imposition, he said the people of Pakistan and Bangladesh, though united by religion are different by language.

“The language imposition by Pakistan on the people of Bangladesh was the fundamental reason for the new country.” Language dominance was one of the reasons for the disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Further, he said mother tongue is similar to a honeycomb and touching it will be dangerous. When a language is forced it will only lead to enmity and affect the nation’s unity.

Stalin said, “like our mother tongue, we respect the mother tongue of others and people whose mother tongue is Hindi are also our brothers and sisters.” While the Centre celebrated Hindi Diwas, he wondered why there had been no separate celebratory events for all the other languages listed in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution and slammed the ‘partiality.’ He also questioned the hesitancy in declaring all the eight schedule languages as official languages.

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