"Aren't You From Hindustan?" Woman's Retort When Told To Speak In Marathi
Another incident of a group of people forcing individuals to speak in Marathi has been reported from Mumbai's Ghatkopar. This time, a group of men surrounded a woman and shouted at her to speak in Marathi.
A video of the incident has surfaced.
The woman, identified as Sanjira Devi, was standing in front of her house when she saw that the men had blocked the way.
When she asked them to give some space, they told her to speak in Marathi. She refused. Thus began the heated exchange.
"Speak in Marathi. This is Maharashtra," one of the men said, raising his finger near her face. The others continued to shout at her.
"No, you talk in Hindi. Tell me, aren't you a Hindustani? Aren't you from Hindustan?" she said.
"Maharashtra, Maharashtra," the man replied.
A crowd began to build up around them and somebody called the police. By the time they arrived, the men had left.
Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has been on the forefront of the speak-in-Marathi street campaign that usually involves threatening people, especially those who have come to Maharashtra, to speak in the local language.
While this has been something that MNS workers have been doing for a long time, the first attack over not speaking Marathi in recent times happened when MNS workers thrashed a shopkeeper near Mumbai for not speaking Marathi.
Earlier this month, the glass door of the office of share market investor Sushil Kedia was vandalised after he declared he wouldn't speak Marathi.
All these incidents also came amid allegations of the state government "imposing" Hindi language in Maharashtra under the three-language formula of the National Education Policy (NEP).
MNS chief Raj Thackeray and his cousin Uddhav Thackeray held a "victory" rally on July 5 and reunited after 20 years.
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