Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) member in the Rajya Sabha, Vaiko, underlined on Thursday the importance of the two-language formula followed by Tamil Nadu and cited Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s criticism of the Centre’s alleged imposition of Hindi in states.

Several Opposition parties have accused the central government of promoting Hindi and Sanskrit in all states in the name of a three-language formula. The three-language formula wants children in southern states to study Hindi as the third language from Class VI to Class X, while children in Hindi-speaking states would study a language of any southern state as the third language.

However, Tamil Nadu never followed this and its children are studying only Tamil and English. The Hindi-speaking states taught Sanskrit mostly as the third language in middle schools, instead of teaching any southern language.

Recently, Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin had openly opposed the recent push for the three-language formula by the Union government. A State Education Policy commission in Karnataka is learnt to have recommended a two-language policy — Kannada and English. The Maharashtra government recently faced strong resistance from Opposition parties on the three-language formula. Mamata has described the push for Hindi as “linguistic terrorism”.

Vaiko said on Thursday that when C. Annadurai was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, he had declared that the three-language formula would never be accepted.

“Today I am happy to say the government of Karnataka, the government of Maharashtra, and the government of West Bengal are keen to follow Tamil Nadu’s two-language policy,” said the 81-year-old leader who completed his term in the Upper House.

“Madam, my sister Mamata Banerjee, whom I can never forget, because one day, she was about to speak in the afternoon, she rushed towards me, snatched my black shawl and said ‘I have to fight many MPs today and this shawl will give me courage and boldness’,” he said.

Retiring AIADMK member N. Chandrasegharan also praised the linguistic richness of the Tamil language and its legacy. Six members from Tamil Nadu completed their term in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Milind Deora from the Shiv Sena’s Shinde faction expressed best wishes to the retiring members and said, like the people of Tamil Nadu, the people of Maharashtra are very fond of Maratha.

“We love our language. We are passionate about culture and we respect others’ culture too,” he said.

Trinamool Congress member Derek O’Brien spoke in Bengali and YSR Congress member Subhash Chandra Bose Pilli spoke in Telugu to give best wishes to the
retiring members.