It’s ironic that while India is rapidly moving towards becoming the world’s third largest economy and there is talk of a developed India, linguistic anarchy is rampant in some parts of the country. It’s believed that inequality and narrow-mindedness disappear with education and prosperity. However, the spread of linguistic intolerance in the relatively prosperous and educated states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu seems to be proving this belief wrong. The latest case is from Kalyan, Maharashtra, where a young man took his own life after being insulted for speaking Hindi. His use of a few Hindi words while communicating with a fellow passenger on a local train so offended some Marathi-speaking people that they pelted him with slaps. Hurt by this, the young man returned home and committed suicide. This young man, a Marathi speaker, was a Marathi speaker.

Has speaking Hindi become such a grave crime that someone should be publicly humiliated and beaten? The silence of political parties and social organizations in this shocking incident is becoming a problem. These organizations forget that among those who recognized Hindi’s potential to unite the nation were Gujarati-speaking Mahatma Gandhi and Narmadashankar Upadhyay, Bengali-speaking Keshavchandra Sen and Subhash Chandra Bose, and many non-Hindi speakers like the Marathi Lokmanya Tilak. They dreamed of making Hindi the national and official language. Due to political machinations, Hindi could not be established as the national language, but its potential is not hidden from anyone.

Many regional political forces are afraid of Hindi, while the reason behind Hindi’s expansion is not its power as an official language, but rather its potential to become a powerful medium of expression. Because Hindi possesses the ability to facilitate easy communication between Indian languages, narrow-minded regional political forces fear it. They see their political identity threatened by Hindi. Therefore, these forces target Hindi speakers. At the forefront of this is Raj Thackeray and his party, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Whenever Raj appears to be marginalized, linguistic anarchy becomes their weapon.

First, after 75 years of independence, there should be a discussion of Indian identity, but current politics has presented fragmented concepts like Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, and Tamil, along with sub-nationalisms. These days, raising the issue of one’s own language is considered a guarantee of electoral success for regional political forces. The Thackeray brothers, Raj Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray, who are facing an existential crisis in Maharashtra politics, have come together. Raj, considered Balasaheb’s political successor, has not achieved much political success.

Therefore, to remain politically relevant, he has only one tool at his disposal: harassing non-Marathi speakers in the name of Marathi. By doing this, Raj is under the illusion that he is carrying forward Balasaheb’s legacy. The question arises: why don’t Raj Thackeray and his people drive out Bollywood, the Hindi cinema for which Mumbai is known? Bollywood is not only a global identity for Maharashtra, but also a major source of livelihood and tax. Raj Thackeray’s bravado about Marathi identity is directed at weak Hindi speakers.

The root of linguistic anarchy is more the frustration of political failure than the pride of local linguistic groups. Bal Thackeray’s political rise initially stemmed from opposition to South Indians. Raj Thackeray, deprived of his legacy, saw the same old tactics to establish himself. Following the example of Maharashtra, attempts are being made to promote linguistic anarchy in Karnataka. The foundations of linguistic anarchy in Tamil Nadu were laid as early as 1913, when the Justice Party was founded in the name of perceived Brahminism and anti-North Indian sentiment.

It was through this party that Ramaswamy Periyar emerged, laying the foundation for the Dravidian movement. The anti-Hindi movement played a central role in strengthening the DMK’s roots in Tamil politics. This is why Chief Minister Stalin and his son, Udhayanidhi, sometimes oppose Hindi and sometimes take pride in calling Sanskrit a dead language. In Karnataka, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, following the DMK’s lead, employs the tactic of linguistic anarchy.

Whether it’s the chaotic language protests of the past or the current anti-Hindi statements, the Congress party has generally played a mute spectator. Today, the Congress is part of the same grand alliance in Maharashtra, a key component of which is the Uddhav faction of the Shiv Sena. It is believed that the Congress is maintaining silence on linguistic anarchy due to hopes of success in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation elections. While it is in power in Karnataka, it has never shown an effective stance against the anarchy. If linguistic anarchy is not effectively curbed, it will become a vehicle for bitterness among the people, the consequences of which will ultimately be borne by the country.