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Drop Hindi option `proposal', Era Sezhiyan tells Centre

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI DEC. 5. Veteran parliamentarian Era Sezhiyan has appealed to the Union Government to drop the proposal, if any, to offer in the defence services officers' examinations the option to candidates to take their examinations in Hindi.

In a statement here, Mr. Sezhiyan referred to reports about the Government's move and appealed to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister that if there was any such proposal, then the Government should have all national languages to be the media in defence services examinations to remove the apprehensions caused by the reports.

Mr. Sezhiyan said the present Government had enough problems in store — in political, economic, social, communal, regional and religious fields. "Let it not painstakingly invite one more problem which, once allowed to grow, will demolish whatever unity the country has and the cooperation the leading party and its allies have amongst themselves in the Government."

He said that in the midst of many "perilous challenges" facing the Government and the country, it was not known why the present Government should come forth to invite another sensitive and explosive challenge that might stir up the bitter confrontations and conflagrations in an issue that remained dormant now.

He recalled that when a move was made in the 1960s to introduce Hindi in UPSC examinations, he raised a discussion in the Lok Sabha in August 1966 and pointed out the discriminating and disastrous consequences of the Government's unwarranted decision. Members cutting across party lines and States were against such a move discriminating other linguistic groups. At the end, the then Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, V.C. Shukla, assured the House that in addition to English, all national languages listed in the Seventh Schedule would be introduced simultaneously as media of the UPSC examinations. That settled the question then. Thereafter, equal status and opportunity were given to all national languages in the examinations.

Mr. Sezhiyan said he was not against the growth of Hindi. But discrimination and unwarranted decisions by the Government should not damage the harmony and rapport prevailing among the linguistic groups in the country.

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