NEW DELHI: Continuing his alleged anti-Hindu imposition tirade, Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin on Friday called the Centre’s three-language formula under the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 a “Hindi colonialism“.
Stalin, in a post he wrote in English, said Tamil Nadu will not tolerate “Hindi colonialism” replacing “British colonialism”.
“History is clear. Those who tried to impose Hindi on Tamil Nadu have either been defeated or later changed their stance and aligned with DMK. Tamil Nadu will not tolerate Hindi colonialism replacing British colonialism,” he wrote.
The Tamil Nadu CM also mocked the state BJP’s signature campaign in the NEP’s favour, challenging the rival party to contest the next year’s assembly elections on the same issue.
“Now the BJP’s circus-like signature campaign for the three-language formula has become a laughing stock in Tamil Nadu. I challenge them to make this their core agenda in the 2026 Assembly elections and let it be a referendum on Hindi imposition,” Stalin wrote on X.
The DMK boss also hit out at the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan “for reviving a fight he can never win”.
“The tree may prefer calm, but the wind will not subside.” It was the Union Education Minister who provoked us to write this series of letters when we were simply doing our job. He forgot his place and dared to threaten an entire state to accept #HindiImposition, and now he faces the consequences of reviving a fight he can never win. Tamil Nadu will not be blackmailed into surrendering,” Stalin wrote.
Highlighting the names of Union government’s schemes, institutions and awards, Stalin said Hindi has been “imposed to a nauseating extent, suffocating non-Hindi speakers, who are the majority in India”.
“Men may come, men may go. But even long after the dominance of Hindi is shattered in India, history will remember that it was DMK that stood as the vanguard,” he wrote.
On Thursday, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai claimed that over one lakh people across the state have supported the BJP’s online campaign on the three-language policy. He added that his party would continue its outreach despite police action, questioning how many people the government could “illegally arrest”.
Countering Stalin’s “Hindi imposition” claims, Annamalai claimed that in the matriculation schools run by Stalin’s party men have not even made Tamil a compulsory subject.
“Having realised that the opposition to the three-language policy hasn’t yielded support from the common people, Thiru @mkstalin has now jumped to the imaginary Hindi imposition,” he added.
What is 3-language formula?
The three-language formula under the NEP 2020 promotes multilingualism while ensuring flexibility in language learning. It mandates that students learn three languages, with at least two being Indian languages, though the choice of languages is left to states and schools.
The policy encourages the mother tongue or regional language as the medium of instruction at least until class 5, preferably until class 8 and beyond. While it allows English as an option, it does not impose any particular language, emphasising state autonomy in language selection. Despite its flexible approach, states like Tamil Nadu oppose the policy, fearing it could lead to the imposition of Hindi over regional languages.