Contentious poster at Tamil Nadu railway station removed after protests against 'Hindi imposition'

After facing protests from commuters and regional political leaders that Southern Railway, headquartered in Chennai, was resorting to imposition of Hindi, the authorities of Tiruppur railway station removed a poster which said 'Sahyog' from the premises on Tuesday.

The issue cropped up after the sign 'Sahyog' in Hindi and the same word in Tamil and English was displayed at the Tiruppur railway station. There were complaints from the commuters that the English and Tamil versions were transliterations of the Hindi word and people could not understand them.

“We know English and Hindi but there are a huge number of people who know only Tamil. The Southern Railway should have written the Tamil meaning of Sahyog in Tamil to help the people. We strongly suspect that there was an intended move to impose Hindi in Tiruppur railway station,” Shanmuganathan, a Tiruppur-based garment exporter, told IANS news agency. “Protests by the local people led the Railways to remove the signage,” he added.

The Hindi language poster had replaced an earlier sign-board which displayed the Tamil word ‘Thagaval Maiyyam’, meaning ‘Information Centre’.

The local commuters claimed that in place of ‘Sahyog’, 'Sevai Mayyam' in Tamil and 'Information Centre' in English would be easier for them to comprehend. 

The image of the sign board was shared on social media by a commuter, which sparked a plethora of reactions.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s son and DMK youth wing leader Udhayanidhi Stalin said: “Hindi could never be imposed on Dravidian soil.”

The political arm of the powerful Vanniyar community in TN, the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) lodged a strong protest. “This move was the Centre’s attempt to impose Hindi in Tamil Nadu”, said Dr. S. Ramadoss, the founding leader of the PMK, adding that the localities vehemently “oppose” and “condemn” it.

“The Centre is imposing Hindi wherever possible and that it is a problem for the Tamilians to communicate in the language,” said state Congress vice president SM Hidayatullah.

Meanwhile, Tiruppur South MLA K Selvaraj shared a video of the poster being removed by the officials with the hashtag #StopHindiImposition:

“The signage was put up in Hindi as there were a large number of guest workers working in the industrial areas of Tiruppur,” said the railway authorities in justification of the sign board. 

However, the PMK local leaders said that this was a “bogey as a majority of passengers frequenting the station were local Tamil people”.

At present, the sign boards display all three languages, i.e., Tamil, English, and Hindi.

Last month, several South Indian leaders including M.K Stalin opposed Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recommendation to solidify Hindi as the “official” medium of instruction in all technical and non-technical educational institutes across India.

This was first presented in the form of a report compiled by the Committee of Parliament on Official Language headed by Shah himself.

The Tamil Nadu Assembly then adopted a resolution against Centre’s bid to “impose” Hindi and urged the Centre not to implement recommendations based on this report. 

With inputs from IANS