Anti-Hindi Movement
The anti-Hindi movement was a movement against the use of Hindi as the official language that emerged in the colonial Indian state of Tamil Nadu (government area of the Madras Presidency ) at the beginning of the 20th century . It discharged itself in riots and protests. In addition, student and political movements were formed.
background
At the beginning of the 20th century India was looking for a uniform national language, a "common language". Hindi was mentioned for this. The choice of Hindi was justified by its supposedly quick and easy learnability. According to Vijayaraghavachariar , Hindustani can be learned within six months. Critical voices rejected Hindustani and pointed to the lack of identification of the Dravidian population with Hindustani. Due to the rejection of Hindi by the South Indian population, an attempt was made from 1918 to make the language more attractive through lectures and various campaigns.
In 1937, Hindustani was officially introduced as a compulsory subject in high schools . Despite assurances that the measure had nothing to do with politics, it was opposed to it in southern India and doubts remained about its sincerity.
Criticism of Hindi
While advocates of this measure saw this as important for the unity of the country, resistance formed from advocates of the Tamil language culture. He cited the Soviet Union as an example, which, despite the existing linguistic diversity, demonstrated great strength from unity. In addition, Tamil would be more than two millennia ahead of Hindustani in terms of tradition, measured by the oldest written document. The oldest document in Tamil culture, the Tolkāppiyam , a work on the grammar of the Tamil language, has been dated differently, between the 3rd century BC. BC and the 10th century AD
Effects
The discussions about the use of Hindi or Tamil as the official language of India promoted on the one hand the fundamental interest in the Tamil language and literature and on the other hand it was an incentive to study Hindi. With the uprising of the advocates of Tamil, this moved closer into the public focus, which brought an upswing in Tamil culture.