MADURAI: Madurai MP Su Venkatesan has sent back a letter he received from the Union ministry of culture as its contents were in Hindi. The letter was sent to him seeking recommendations for the Gandhi Peace Prize.
In a letter to Union minister of state for culture Prahlad Singh Patel dated February 27, Venkatesan stated that he could not understand its contents. From the form attached with the letter, which was in English, he understood that he was asked to send recommendations for the Gandhi Peace Prize.
The MP stated that he had registered his protest several times earlier for sending communication in Hindi from various ministries. It was a violation of the Official Language Implementation Act, he said.
Venkatesan had approached the Madras high court. The Union Government had expressed regret in the court and assured that all future communications would be in English.
“At least officials of the ministry should have had the sensitivity on the issue keeping in mind the multicultural and multilingual heritage of this great nation. I doubt whether this kind of approach is deliberate on the part of the Government of India to implement their project of imposing Sanskrit and Hindi on the people of non-Hindi speaking states of India particularly Tamil Nadu,” he said.
He said Tamil Nadu has a unique history of fighting such attempts to impose Hindi and many sacrifices had been made. Hence, people would not get tired and fight the attempts to weaken their resolve to keep their identity and great culture, he added.
The MP stated that he was sending back the letter and requested the minister to advise his officials not to resort to such provocative measures in future.