MyVoice is to lift up the voices and experiences

The Hans editorial defines Shah's Hindi push

This is in response to the editorial "Imposing Hindi not easy as doing away with Article 370" (THI, September 16). It brought out the subtleties of the linguistic plurality of India.

The Hindi push needs to be understood from the perspective of politics of language where language is used as an instrument to gain political mileage.

The push for Hindi by Union Home Minister Amit Shah has two sides: (i) To gain inroads into the Southern India, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to acquire electoral dominance and (ii) to create a misconception of singular linguistic identity among the public.

The story has just begun, and the worst things are yet to unfold from the top brass of the BJP. The party is taking up all sensitive matters one by one to distort the fundamental structure of the Constitution.

The BJP is trying hard to impose the Hindu majoritarian culture. The push for Hindi as the national language is to create a public rhetoric so as to gain the upper hand in the ongoing Supreme Court hearing in the Ayodhya case, which provides an electoral social legitimacy to the party irrespective of the final outcome of the hearing.

The multi-cultural and plural identity of India is at stake with the hegemonic politics of the BJP. The politics of language, religion, caste and identity seems to have replaced the transformative politics of social change in the country.

Nayakara Veeresha, Nagarabhavi, Bengaluru

Don't force Hindi on all States

Home Minister Amit Shah's call to make Hindi a common and mandatory language is a bad and mad move. The country has scores of rich, ancient and versatile languages with their own scripts and hundreds of dialects supporting them.

Hindi was chosen earlier as national language just by one vote supported by late Vajpayee. Shah must understand Hindi is just one of the several languages spoken in India.

Forcing Hindi on all States can become a step towards the BJP losing power. The BJP and NDA must be very careful and should not make any move to force Hindi on all States.

Sambasiva Rao Choda, Chaitanyapuri, Hyderabad

Pak leaders should keep restraint

After abrogation of special status to Jammu & Kashmir, a few Pakistani eminent leaders got irritated and warned India with dire consequences.

One leader issued nuclear war threat to India and another predicted a full-blown war with India. If any Pakistani leader has reservation regarding the decision of Indian government, they can raise their concern at every international forum to garner support from fellow nations.

If they have calibre, they can present India as a culprit before the world with their genuine arguments coupled with solid proofs. Showing impatience towards India with loose tongue can contribute nothing but escalation of bilateral ties with India and gradually such situation can lead to taste bitter experience to Pakistan.

War is sweet to those who haven't experienced it. A Korean adage says, "Even a fish would not get into trouble if it kept its mouth shut". Restrain is need of the hour for a few Pakistani leaders.

Raghubabu Kondapi, Ongole, AP

Implement Centre's MV Act

This is with reference to the report 'Telangana says no to Centre's MV Act' (Sept 16). Nowadays, people do not follow the traffic rules because they follow the 'take it easy attitude' - 'Sab chalta hai'.

Despite knowing the rules and regulations, they want to break traffic rules. Drunk driving and crossing the traffic signal when red light is on are common among the road users. To contain this menace, the Union government has passed the MV Act that aims to impose heavy fines for not following traffic rules.

The implementation of MV Act is necessary in today's scenario because without any hefty fines, road users do not follow traffic rules. The State government should not politicise the MV Act issue and should implement the Act without any delay.

At least, the State government should introduce the new MV Act with some changes in the Union govt's MV Act as soon as possible.

Laeeqa Urooj, Hyderabad