ভারতীয় মুদ্রার প্রতীকচিহ্ন ‘রুপি’র পরিবর্তন ও তামিল অধিকার বিতর্কে অকপট Senior Journalist Madhavan Narayanan
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Tamil Nadu: মুখ্যমন্ত্রীর হিন্দি ‘অ্যালার্জি’! ভারতীয় মুদ্রার প্রতীক বর্জন, দলেরই নেতার ছেলেকে ‘অপমান’ :: https://bengali.oneindia.com/news/india/tamil-nadu-replaces-rupee-symbol-from-budget-in-big-language-row-escalation-276529.html?ref=DMDesc
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello viewers, today we are diving into India's one of the biggest policy debates, the National
00:05Education Policy and Tamil Nadu's unwavering resistance to it. To discuss this matter today
00:11we have senior journalist Madhavan Narayanan. Welcome sir. In Tamil Nadu, today's budget,
00:19the letter, usage of the letter Tamil Ru has become a topic of debate. What's your opinion
00:25on this sir?
00:27I think it is very symbolic because actually we have to watch it carefully. Even yesterday
00:34the budget that was presented in the English section, the DMK government continues to use
00:41the national symbol that is based on a combination of Roman and Hindi script. It's only that
00:48in the Tamil script it is using the Tamil letter based script and they are very clear.
00:56They are just using it as a symbol in more ways than one. It's a symbol of protest in
01:02the context of the education policy and the three language policy and the delimitation
01:07exercise that is being contemplated. And I think if I'm not mistaken, even in the budget
01:16documents today, it is pretty much the same. The English language, the language of the
01:20union is English as per the two language policy that is preferred and pursued by the
01:27Tamil Nadu government. And therefore it is logical just as you would use this. But yes,
01:32they have used the other symbol in the past and therefore there is a reason to ask why
01:38this change and that itself is the intention of the DMK government. They want to highlight
01:44the fact that they have disagreements and differences with the government at the centre,
01:49with the union government on various issues. So, this is political as well as symbolic.
01:55But the BJP leaders are saying that instead of using Devanagari rupee symbol, Tamil Nadu
02:02using the Tamil ru symbol, by using this they are disrespecting the India's honour and even
02:08insulting the symbol which was created by a Tamilian. So, what's your take on this, sir?
02:13See, I was yesterday on a TV discussion in which the person who created the symbol, Uday
02:20Kumar Dharmalingam, was himself present and he was quite composed and calm and he said
02:26his father has been a DMK MLA, but he said that, look, it is their choice. I'm still
02:32learning on that issue. He did not become angry or upset or even whine. So, when the
02:38creator himself is not upset, I don't know why others should be. But I think it's becoming
02:43a matter of, again, a political tussle between the BJP and DMK. And I think the whole issue
02:51is how do you define the basis of a national symbol or honour. Because if it is Tamil Nadu
03:00under the Dravida movement in general, particularly the DMK, has emphasised that India is a union
03:07of states, which is actually the first sentence in the constitution of India. So, they believe
03:13in federalism, unionism, as opposed to some kind of a historic cultural approach that
03:20the BJP seems to write. If you look at it, the BJP Tamil Nadu president, Anna Malai,
03:26uses words like Bharat and Karyakarta, which are very, very, there is a vocabulary to this,
03:33which the RSS and the BJP practice. The Dravida movement, particularly DMK, likes to use an
03:40alternate vocabulary. And the fault lines lie in everything from language to education
03:47policy, where there is a language to two language policy that the Congress prefer, the DMK prefers.
03:55And of course, there have been other controversies, as you know, from the sharing of tax revenues
04:00and GST revenues to the so-called NEET examination, the National Entrance Test for medical students,
04:10which the Tamil Nadu government, the DMK government has been wanting more autonomy on that because
04:16they believe that Tamil Nadu students are being deprived of their opportunities. So,
04:21this is part of a long story. This rupee symbol is nothing but the latest in a set of provocative
04:28confrontations, or I would call shadow boxing between the central government or union government
04:34led by the BJP and the state government led by the DMK.
04:38But then Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has raised the question in her recent post saying that
04:47the rupee symbol was adopted in 2010 by the UPA government. Why didn't DMK did not protest
04:55at that time, but now protesting against it? And she has also quoted the traditional roots of the
05:01word rupee from Sanskrit word. How do you see this, sir?
05:06Let me say three things in this. First of all, the DMK is interestingly enough not protesting.
05:11They have simply, if they were protesting, they would not have used that symbol in the English
05:15language part of that. They are highlighting the two language policy by using a two symbol policy.
05:20So, that is one thing. The second thing is, it is in the current context that they are changing the
05:28symbol as a disagreement with the current BJP government. Now, if you go back to the two
05:36language policy, in 1959, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised to Tamil Nadu that or
05:43to any other state in the non-Hindi states that Hindi will not be imposed on any state that is not
05:49ready for it. And also, English was extended indefinitely as the official language of the
05:54country under the constitution. If you look at the history, you will find that the UPA government,
06:01because it was led by the Congress, has been following the Jawaharlal Nehru formula.
06:07And so, that formula, according to the DMK, has been violated by the current Modi-led, Prime
06:15Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government. And to that extent, they calibrate the responses
06:21accordingly. So, this is a political calibration in response to a political calibration.
06:28Because the three language policy has been around as an idea for about,
06:33what, close to 60 years now or 55 years plus. But it has never been implemented properly in
06:40any state. So, when Tamil Nadu is confronted with a situation where the two-language policy
06:46is being sought to be indirectly violated through a three-language policy, you know,
06:53Tamil Nadu under the DMK says it is our choice whether to go for two or three.
06:58By linking central funds to two-language policy or three-language policy, you are coercing us or
07:08putting pressure on us to adopt a language policy that goes against our allowed two-language policy.
07:15And therefore, we need to protest. And in a symbol of protest, we use something that
07:22highlights the two-language policy. Now, earlier, there was no problem. And therefore, there was no
07:27protest. Symbols are only the symbols. You know, it's like waving a black flag.
07:33Why do you wave a black flag? So, this is some sort of a black flag that the Tamil Nadu government
07:38has been waving at the BJP. Okay. Nadeem, some people from DMK side are
07:44saying that all these actions from Tamil Nadu are a kind of retaliation to the central government
07:51for not providing Tamil Nadu its due share of funds. So, is this how a retaliation should be
07:57expressed, sir? I think I have already said this before that the DMK and the BJP have been on a
08:06confrontational path for a very long time. But I have to remind your viewers that the BJP was
08:15close to Jaila Lita. And Jaila Lita and its ADMK government withdrew support to the Vajpayee
08:25government in 1998. And that is widely regarded as a reason for the BJP government, you know,
08:34staging the nuclear tests and program to fortify itself politically. And after that,
08:42there was a honeymoon period between the BJP and the DMK under Vajpayee. But ideologically,
08:50the Dravida movement, which has been led by Periyar, Riviar and later Anna Durai and later
08:59Karunanidhi and the RSS, which has its origins, you know, even Congress leaders during independence
09:06movement, some of them like Madan Mohan Malviya practiced what is called the one nation,
09:11one language policy. So, you know, RSS used to say Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan, which is that
09:19Hindi as a language, Hinduism as a religion and Hindustan as a place of the Hindus is what we
09:25believe in. So, there is a history to this where the Dravida movement was opposed to this whole
09:32thing. But as the DMK emerged as a political party of significance in the 1960s,
09:38in the imposition became an important issue on which the DMK wrote to power
09:43under CNN and Durai. And that was ideologically a challenging thing. It was a matter of principle
09:53and policy. It wasn't about individuals. It was about a whole movement. And therefore,
10:01to a lot of things, including share of, you know, tax revenues, there has been a confrontational
10:08path. Now, who's confronting whom is a big question. As journalists, we have to ask,
10:14I mean, why, you know, we are a federal republic, you know, we call it a union of states,
10:19we can argue on the degree of the federal powers under the constitution. Even education, which is
10:27currently being hotly debated, was under the state list till the emergency. Now, BJP didn't
10:34like the emergency, but they haven't removed the emergency provision of 42nd amendment provision
10:40of education and the concurrent list as against the state list. So, everybody likes to wield power
10:47at the central government level. Therefore, the BJP has been using its powers to push its own
10:52agenda directly or indirectly. And there has been a century old
11:00mistrust between the Dravida movement and the RSS movement. And whatever you are happening,
11:06or you see happening, are episodes in a very long political soap opera, I would say.
11:16But union ministers like Dharamendra Pradhan, Amit Shah and all other BJP leaders are saying
11:23that the three-language policy doesn't mandate learning Hindi, but that anyone can choose any
11:30language. How Tamil Nadu should understand this, sir?
11:34I think it's a very good question. You know, it's like cricket. I use the analogy of cricket to
11:39explain certain things. How do you define whether the ball is a white ball or not? You know,
11:46do you play the white ball or not? So, BJP thinks this is a white ball or it thinks it's a no ball.
11:55Now, because you cross a certain line. Now, who defines the line? DMK says two-language policy
12:01is the line. The moment you cross it into three languages, it doesn't matter which language you
12:05are coming up. It doesn't matter whether it's Tamil or Hindi or, you know, whether it's Hindi
12:13or Telugu or Marathi. So, there are three things that we need to understand. First of all,
12:18three-language policy is simple. Even a two-language policy is not being followed by most
12:22North Indian states. Even English is not properly taught. And Hindi is spoken. And the third
12:29language, you take a road trip from Haryana to Bihar to UP and you will find that no government
12:38will teach any Indian language apart from Hindi. Or if there are, then there are no teachers. I
12:43mean, it's just on paper. So, that is one thing that shows that the BJP has to first practice
12:52what it teaches in the states where it's in power so that it can lead by example. That is one
12:59important aspect. So, the no ball syndrome works in many ways. At the practical level,
13:06say, the DMK can say, you've not done it in those states. How can you ask us? And second thing is,
13:13once you take that no ball line, that I am the one defining the no ball. You know, federalism
13:18is about who draws the line. It's not just about the line. You know, it is, women understand it
13:26very easily. It's like consent. It's for the woman to decide whether there is consent.
13:32So, there is a co-optional element. So, you cannot, you know, I was joking, you know,
13:38this is the Kabir Singh approach to, Arjun Reddy approach to federalism, where the man assumes
13:44that a woman should do this and, you know, takes a dominating position. So, that is one thing
13:51that is nuanced enough for us to understand. Federalism is, you can take a downside up
13:59version of federalism and the top-down approach to co-option. And the BJP has been using a certain
14:09approach where it's, to use a cricketing analogy, it's using a balling run-up that is controversial
14:15from the point of view of many states. The delimitation is even more controversial.
14:19So, these are issues on which political debate is needed. And what the DMK is doing
14:25is nothing but trigger this political debate. It's an open question on what the people of Tamil
14:30Nadu really want. You know, elections are due next year. A lot can be gauged from the electoral mood.
14:37There are lots of political details that are relevant here within the Tamil Nadu
14:45politics or elections. And my broad belief is that after the demise of Jayalalitha
14:53and a decline of the AADMK, the BJP is very keen to find its foothold in Tamil Nadu as well as
15:00just like is in Bengal. So, some of the issues it raises directly as a political party and
15:06indirectly as a ruling party at the central government through policies. It's a policy-led
15:11approach to politics. Whereas the DMK wants a politics-led approach to policy.
15:18Okay. Coming to delimitation and national education policy, DMK has called for a meeting.
15:25DMK party members are going beyond Tamil Nadu and meeting leaders from Karnataka,
15:33Telangana and all others and have called for a meeting to discuss about delimitation and
15:39NEP critics. Is Tamil Nadu positioning itself in a broader way as a counterweight to BJP's
15:47national agenda, sir? If so, how will it benefit DMK as a party for a longer run?
15:53And for Tamil Nadu, how will it benefit, sir? I don't know about the benefit part. Let me
15:59explain the political situation. See, as far as Hindi is concerned, although many southern states
16:07don't really want Hindi, they're not bothered. It's not a big political issue because the DMK
16:13actually came to power in the 60s on the basis of an anti-Hindi agitation and a lot of people
16:19sacrificed their lives. So, I have said in a TV debate that Hindi as a political issue is
16:24as important to the DMK as Ayodhya's temple is to the BJP. So, but it is very somewhat isolated
16:33on that issue when it comes to federalism. Unlike delimitation in which if you notice even
16:39former Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik is now ready to play ball with the DMK.
16:45So, DMK has many other supporters among state chief ministers. It's important to remember that
16:51after the last national elections, the India alliance led by the Congress or which appeared
16:58to be led by the Congress has been on a back burner and DMK is facing elections next year.
17:05So, it is natural for the DMK to enlist as much support as possible among states to emphasize
17:13its case for federalism. And my simple contention to your question on benefits is that politics
17:21ultimately is about power and power is formed by solidarities, alliances, mass movements and
17:28campaigns in a democracy. So, all these initiatives by the DMK and the government
17:36in Tamil Nadu are part of an attempt to muster support from various states where the BJP is
17:43weak or not so strong or where there is a significant opposition to the BJP.
17:49So, to that extent, it's not only what you call happening, it is a necessity for the DMK.
17:57And therefore, DMK can potentially become a nucleus for a federalist movement in India,
18:03which has been, if you look at the past 30 years, there was an implied federalism in the 1990s when
18:11National Front under VP Singh and United Front under Deva Gowda were in power. But the NDA was
18:19countered by the UPA in 2004. So, Congress has been tamed from an authoritarian party into a
18:27more federalist party, which is why they call it the United Progressive Alliance, UPA. And to that
18:33extent, the federalism was on the back burner. Now, federalism is back on the agenda because
18:39the BJP's policy, if you look at it, not just in terms of the two language policy, in terms of GST
18:47revenues, in terms of agriculture, where there were farm laws that were withdrawn by the BJP,
18:53in terms of the one nation, one election rule, there has been a lot of initiatives by the BJP
19:00that kind of erodes the agency of the states in many cases, either politically or culturally
19:08or administratively. And to that extent, the DMK will find more support in other states
19:14wherever this happens. Apart from this, the perspective of Tamil Nadu in three language
19:21policy and Hindi in position here, when seen in BJP's perspective, is BJP playing a kind of role
19:31where in Hindi speaking states, like we are, actually we are fighting for Hindi, like
19:39portraying a role like, portraying a role in the Hindi speaking states that we are fighting for
19:44Hindi. Is it creating an image like sort of thing, sir? No, the BJP wants to have the,
19:50you know, as they say, the saying goes, BJP wants to eat the cake and have it too.
19:54If you look at the incidents surrounding some of the events that happened in Tirupur last year,
20:01there were some Bihari workers who were apparently involved in some violence that
20:08spread the story or narrative in Bihar that Biharis are not being treated well in Tamil Nadu
20:13because Tamil Nadu is economically now a very advanced state by Indian standards.
20:19And you have people working in cities like Coimbatore, Chennai, Tirupur, who are from
20:24Nepal and Assam and Bihar. And BJP has historically played with a certain amount of,
20:33you know, it's I would call playing, flirting with a certain linguistic,
20:40not chauvinism, maybe a too tough a word, some kind of a linguistic identity issue.
20:46It plays on the margins. But at the same time, in Tamil Nadu, it wants to be seen as an inclusive,
20:51multilingual, multicultural party. So, whatever they do is to, actually, they use the small band
20:58of action where they do certain things that help them officially stay on this side of the line,
21:07but unofficially the party carders locally try to play on sentiments. It is not a very
21:13successful formula so far, but BJP does try that. But they want to be very national in a very
21:22orthodox, conservative trend of the term. You know, I call the BJP as a reluctantly federalist
21:30party. They are not federalist by DNA. DMK is federalist by DNA. So, the friction will remain.
21:41One last question. In today's budget, Finance Minister Thangam Thenares has stated that
21:46even when the central government's share around 2000 crore for education sector is not
21:52allocated to Tamil Nadu, we ourselves will allocate the same 2000 crore to the education sector. So,
21:58out of all the financial burdens, all this, how will the government manage to allocate it, sir?
22:05I don't think it's a big amount, honestly speaking. In fact, I have a very simple
22:10position, which is both BJP and DMK are using this for political campaigns.
22:16And, you know, if the BJP wants, it can always say we are giving this money to the people of
22:21Tamil Nadu. We won't give it to the government of Tamil Nadu. We are happy to allocate that portion
22:26to buy some other device to, let's say, CBSE schools or private schools. Game is over.
22:35Similarly, DMK may or may not do what it wants. But, you know, it is not only the language issue,
22:43the DMK is also very keen to show that economically, in spite of contributing a lot
22:49of money to the central kitty, it is not getting back enough in return. You know, in federalism,
22:55especially with the Indian model of social justice, social justice includes justice for
23:00underprivileged states. So, you can always say Bihar deserves a bit more based on the principles
23:06of social justice. But on the other hand, you may say Congress, Tamil Nadu deserves more on the
23:11basis of federalism or justice. So, just to give you some statistics, Tamil Nadu accounts for
23:19what? 9% of India's GDP by only 6% of the population. So, it's a 3% surplus that is
23:30being transferred to other states, you can say, if you're looking at population as a,
23:35you know, contribution to kitty as a proportion of the GDP as a criteria. So, to that extent,
23:43DMK wants to politicize the idea that it is Tamil Nadu's money that is being taken to other states.
23:53It helps build a narrative, just as the three-language policy and the use of national
23:59symbols helps BJP build a narrative. So, it is essentially a battle of the narratives.
24:04What really matters is what the people of Tamil Nadu think about this and how important they
24:10think Hindi imposition as an issue is or not. Honestly speaking, Hindi is not that big an issue
24:20either way for the people of Tamil Nadu. I'm clear on that. But yeah, if you really go into the
24:26nuances of Tamil Nadu's policy, you have a policy and politics, you have new parties like the
24:32Namthamar Karchi. And I have a feeling that this making Hindi an issue will transfer some votes
24:39from the Namthamar Karchi to DMK. This is my assessment based on my current information.
24:44I'm still watching the situation. But if that is the case, then DMK can hope to pat itself on the
24:50back. But on the other hand, if simply a certain amount of financial and upward mobility is the
25:01issue, maybe the other policy measures that the BJP promises, we'll have to watch that, particularly
25:08because BJP has a lot of groundwork to do in Tamil Nadu because I don't think it can survive on its
25:15own. So, it is leaning on PMK, Patalimakkal Karchi and even AIADMK under Edhapadi Parnasamy is not
25:24playing ball with the BJP. So, the BJP is trying very hard. I think my own cynical observation is
25:32the BJP likes the idea of using Tamil Nadu to score points in the north. That is one way of looking at
25:39it.