Indian Tamil man, 85, burns himself to death in Hindi language protest against government
- Farmer MV Thangavel doused himself in petrol and set himself alight, police say; he held a Tamil-language placard saying, ‘Modi government, stop imposing Hindi’
- Hindu nationalist PM Narendra Modi talks of ‘slave mentality’ around official English, while less than half population speaks Hindi among hundreds of languages
An octogenarian man burned himself to death in southern India in protest at what he called New Delhi’s attempts to impose nationwide usage of Hindi, a language mostly spoken in the north, police said on Sunday.
Language is an emotive issue in the country where hundreds of languages and dialects are spoken, but English serves as the main official medium while state governments use regional languages.
According to the most recent census in 2011, fewer than half of Indian citizens speak Hindi, just under 44 per cent.
But last month a group of parliamentarians headed by the powerful interior minister Amit Shah reportedly recommended making Hindi the national official language, including for technical education such as medicine and engineering.
Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken of a “slave mentality” around the use of English and promoted the use of Indian languages.
But opponents accuse his government of attempting to impose Hindi, causing particular anger in the south.
Most southern Indian languages are Dravidian, a completely different language family to the Indo-European group which includes Hindi.