‘Asked If I Was Indian By CISF Official At The Airport For Not Knowing Hindi,’ Says DMK’s Kanimozhi

The blazing politics over language, found a new flashpoint on August 9. DMK MP Kanimozhi shared a recent unpleasant experience at the airport. Tuticorin MP said a CISF officer at the airport asked her if she was ‘an Indian’ because she said she didn't know Hindi and asked the officer to speak in English or Tamil. She ended her tweet asking, "I would like to know from when being Indian is equal to knowing Hindi. A hashtag of "Hindi imposition" followed. Kanimozhi’s tweet found support from many including Congress MPs Manickam Tagore, who called it "condemnable". Karti Chidambaram who wanted the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to respond to what he called "outright ridiculous”. CISF asked for Kanimozhi's journey details including name of airport, location, date, and time of the incident to take action against this.They also apologised. Language politics has always been a sensitive as well as emotive issue in Tamil Nadu where the new education policy has been stirring up a controversy. Calling it imposition of Hindi, the Tamil Nadu government has rejected centre's proposed implementation of a three-language formula in schools - two of which should be native. Kanimozhi too has always been strictly against imposition of Hindi or Sanskrit in the state where the two languages taught at school are Tamil & English.