The brutal majority of the Members of Parliament from the states of UP, MP, Bihar, Rajasthan demanded that Hindi be made the National language and accordingly a bill was introduced in the parliament for debate in the yearly 1960s during the times when JN was the PM. It was due to the persistent demands and debating skills of later CM of TN Late CNAnnadurai that JN was forced to give a promise in the floor of the parliament that English will be continued as long as the people of TN want it. This promise had been kept up but in a broken form time and again.
In the year 1965, when there was change in the Chief Minister of the state, (Kamaraj stepped aside and Bhakthavatsalam became CM) there was a huge scarcity of food items in the state (imagine the country was literally living on the benevolence of PL 180 of USA and got the food delivered to the ports of Mumbai, Kolkata and Madras). Added to this the government was forced to give into the demands of the brute majority of MPs from the states mentioned above and HIndi was being introduced surreptitiously in all areas of interaction with the central government. It was slowly becoming a thorn in the neck of the non Hindi speaking states where Hindi is not even spoken locally even in cities. The original promise of the then PM JN was being slowly being forgotten. This gave rise to the anti Hindi agitation in the state of TN. The anti Hindi agitation paved the way for the DMK to come to power. This also made thousands of teachers who were teaching Hindi and Sanskrti in schools and colleges jobless as the government decided to discontinue teaching both the languages in the educational institutions starting from primary to post graduate. The Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, which was formed to propagate Hindi in the southern states, also kept a low profile for obvious reasons.
Thus started the language wars in the country. Tamil was made the state language along with English and slowly it was made compulsory. The administrators who joined the IAS from other states were made to pass a test in Tamil to continue to work in TN. A few of them excelled themselves in the process. The students of the state were deprived of learning one more language be it Hindi or Sanskrit. Tamil was made compulsory in all schools till the school final. There were very few schools with CBSE affiliation where Hindi/ Sanskrit was being taught. Whereas in almost all the other states, Hindi/ Sanskrit was being taught with the local language and in a few cases English. In most of the states of Hindi heartland, English was being relegated to only optional language. Even that status was not given to Hindi in TN.
The past almost fifty years saw a group of lakhs of students coming out of the school/ college system in the state who are finding it increasingly difficult in the places outside the state as the locals did not understand English or Tamil (except in a few southern states and cities in those states). The students from the state did not know Hindi to converse fluently with the local people there. This resulted in a big problem for getting employment when the economy opened up in 1991 and industry started expanding and employment increased. They were hiring vigorously but the lack of Hindi knowledge was a big impediment to the candidates from TN. The IT sector which opened up in 1995-96 was another area where the absence of Hindi was being felt acutely.
To balance this malady, during the time MGR was CM of the state, he opened up the education sector with more schools got affiliation with CBSE and Hindi/ Sanskrit becoming a language to be taught. But even this was very minimal action as the candidates from interior districts found it difficult to get jobs in other states without knowledge of Hindi.
The politicians played with the emotions of the people by playing the language card every time the felt threatened to lose power. But they safely made sure that their progeny is assured of the benefits of learning Hindi. In the successive ministries of NDA-1, UPA-1 and UPA-2 the ministers from the TN regional party were predominantly Hindi knowing and Hindi speaking persons despite outwardly they were opposing Hindi. Even in the election to the LS from a seat in Chennai where predominantly Hindi speaking population reside, they used Hindi posters. This much for their anti Hindi stand.
Now, very recently when the main opposition party finds itself not able to wrest the power thru any means, their leaders had started talking of anti Hindi agitation if Hindi is imposed on the people. Again the people of TN will go after these empty slogans and lose out in the bargain. I have a question for these parties who are shouting anti Hindi slogans and also threatening the agitation will be started: You keep your political agenda separate. What right you have to stop a person from learning a language of his/her choice?
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