‘If you beat me…': Maharashtra governor on violence over Marathi language

Hindustan Times

21 hours ago

Amid the ongoing language row in Maharashtra, governor CP Radhakrishnan said that incidents of violence over language could hinder investments in the state and that it was harming Maharashtra in the long term. He also said that everyone's mother tongue should be respected. Maharashtra governor CP Radhakrishnan also added that he did not speak and understand Hindi, which is an obstacle for him.(File/ANI)
To make his point, Radhakrishnan shared an incident from when he was an MP in Tamil Nadu where he witnessed something similar - violence over language.
'When I was an MP in Tamil Nadu,' Radhakrishnan narrated, 'one day on a highway, I saw some people beating someone. I immediately asked my driver to stop the car and I got out of the car. After seeing me, those who were beating ran away and people who were getting beaten up stood there. I asked them what the problem was, he was telling in Hindi and I could only understand maar maar (beaten up). I called the hotel owner and I asked him, he explained to me that they don't know Tamil, those people were trying to beat them and asked them to speak only in Tamil.'
Also read: Maharashtra challenges acquittal of Mumbai train blasts accused in Supreme Court
'If you come and beat me, can I speak in Marathi immediately? It's impossible. I said sorry to them…I paid for their food and only left after they sat in a lorry,' he added.
Clarifying why he shared that incident, he said that with such kind of hatred, investors would not come and invest in the state, which would harm Maharashtra in long term.
'Why I am telling this? If we spread this kind of hatred, then which investor will come? No investor will come, no industry will come. In the long run, we're doing harm to Maharashtra,' he said.
He also added that he did not speak and understand Hindi, which is an obstacle for him. 'I'm unable to understand Hindi, and that is an obstacle for me…We must learn the maximum number of languages, and we should be proud of our mother tongue, there's no compromise on that,' he said.
Maharashtra governor's remarks come amid several recent incidents of violence against non-Marathi speakers in the state, particularly by workers of Uddhav Thackera's Shiv Sena faction and his cousin Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
'What if someone asks us to speak in Tamil, Bengali?'
Reiterating what governor CP Radhakrishnan said, Maharashtra minister Girish Mahajan said that forcing someone to speak Marathi and beating them over it was not good for the state. He also that even Marathi people go out of state for a lot of reasons, what if they're also asked to speak in a language they don't know.
'Definitely, Marathi is our mother tongue, and it is our priority, but if we force someone else to speak Marathi or beat them, that is also not right for our state. We also go out, and what will we do if someone tells us to speak in Tamil or Bengali,' ANI quoted Mahajan as saying.
'We live in a country where many languages are spoken. We love our own languages, but I also do not like this kind of attitude,' he added.