Dear Nachi Naga,
1. Hindi was never a national language and never it will be one.
It is only 'official language'. This status also it could attain, because of the additional casting vote by the then president Rajendra Prasad, because of tie between Hindi protagonists and English supporters.
(With independence, the question of a common language naturally came up. The Constituent Assembly could not arrive at a consensus in the matter. The question was put to vote and Hindi won on a single vote-the casting vote.- Source: Wikipedia)
(The
official language of the Indian Union is
Hindi with
English as a secondary official language; states in India can legislate their own official languages.
Neither the Constitution of India, nor any Indian law defines any national language. -
Government of India website)
[FONT="]AHMEDABAD: Does India have a national language? No, says the Gujarat High Court. The court also observed that in India, a majority of people have accepted Hindi as a national language and many speak Hindi and write in Devanagari script, but it's not officially the national language. [/FONT]
[FONT="]With this observation, a bench headed by Chief Justice S J Mukhopadhaya refused to issue directions that packaged commodities must contain details about goods in Hindi. [/FONT]
2. Hindi is the first language of only 30% of the country's population.
3. Viewed as a whole, only 42.2% of the total population understands/speaks Hindi.
This includes illiterates from Hindi belt also. (Source: 2001 census)
4. Therefore, if we consider the Hindi-literate people, who can read and write Hindi,
it will be less than 30%.
5. Recall the words of Annadurai:
"It is claimed that Hindi should be the common language because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?."
He went on to ridicule Nehru and other Hindi fanatics, saying, "What is there in Hindi literature, except Tulsidas Ramayana and Railway Time Table?"
Even though I don't support hatred for any language, imposition of any language is arbitrary , illegal and unconstitutional.
During the debate on official language, C. Subramaniam and O. V. Alagesan resigned protesting Lal Bahadur Shastri's move for imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states in 1964.
Rajagopalachari who was once a staunch supporter of three language formula, said "If English is an alien language for Hindi people, Hindi is equally alien to non-Hindi speaking people".
I would also appeal to our friends here not to write long Tamil sentences using English alphabets (transliteration). It is irritating. Instead, either use English translation or write them using Tamil alphabets only.
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P.S: In Tamilnadu, only 2.16% of the population know a third language, as per 2001 census.