Against the backdrop of the language controversy in Maharashtra Governor CP Radhakrishnan remarked that violence on issues of language would deter investments in the state and that it was causing harm to Maharashtra in the long run. He further stated that one's mother tongue should be given respect by all.
To drive home his point, Radhakrishnan related an episode from the time he was a Tamil Nadu MP when he saw something akin to it—violence on the issue of language.
"When I was an MP for Tamil Nadu," Radhakrishnan recounted, "I was traveling in a car one day on a highway and saw some people beating a person. I told my driver to pull over and I got out of the vehicle. When those who were beating saw me, they fled and those who were getting beaten up remained standing there." I inquired from them what was the issue, he was narrating in Hindi and I could only grasp maar maar (beaten up). I contacted the hotel owner and I asked him, he told me that they do not speak Tamil, those individuals were attempting to beat them and instructed them to use only Tamil language.
"If you beat me up and come, can I talk in Marathi right away? It is not possible. I apologised to them… I had their food paid for and left only after they sat in a lorry," he explained.
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Explaining why he mentioned that incident, he said that with such type of hatred, the investors would not come and invest in the state, which would bring damage to Maharashtra in the long run.
To whom am I speaking? If we spread such hatred, then which investor will arrive? No investor will arrive, no industry will arrive. In the long term, we're doing damage to Maharashtra," he said.
He also pointed out that he did not know and speak Hindi, which is his handicap. "I cannot comprehend Hindi, and that is a hindrance to me… We have to learn as many languages as possible, and we should be proud of our mother tongue, no compromise on that," he added.
Maharashtra Governor's statement comes as there have been a number of recent attacks on non-Marathi speaking people in the state, especially by employees of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena camp and his cousin Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
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.
Absolutely, Marathi is our mother tongue, and it is also our priority, but if we compel someone else to speak Marathi or beat them up, that is also wrong for our state. We also venture out, and what will happen if someone instructs us to speak in Tamil or Bengali," ANI cited Mahajan as saying.
"We are living in a nation where different languages are spoken. We love our own language, but I also do not like this type of attitude," he further stated.
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