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Comment by 1024core | Hacker News Reader

The BBC has to get an anti-Modi (Prime Minister of India) jab in: "He worries about the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP's efforts to impose Hindi all over India, which he calls a "direct attack on our linguistic plurality". "

Various governments in Delhi, throughout history, have toyed with the idea of making Hindi the national language. It hasn't happened yet, and won't happen. But, of course, the BBC would like you to believe that Modi thought of it first.

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Please don't take HN threads in flamewar directions. You managed to damage this one considerably, and it breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I was objecting to a mischaracterization in the article. I took a literal quote from the article and objected to it; I did not make it up, or change topics.

imo you focused on a minor part of the article in order to score a political point, and topped it off with an irrelevant generalisation about the BBC.

Sure, but none of that changes the point about not taking HN into flamewars.

I agree. It was not my intention to start a flamewar; but with all the talk about "biased RT", "biased Al Jazeera", etc. flying about, I wanted to point out how BBC also is equally biased, just not in the direction "we" would like them to be.

And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw

I don't disagree with you, but in this context, it just doesn't matter. Being right is of small significance compared to not going up in flames.

Nobody ever feels like they were the one who started anything, so that consideration has little value.

You are correct. I apologize for the distraction caused.

What other governments did is irrelevant. Those governments are out of power and incapable of doing anything.

Modi is, so of course you'd talk about him.

And let's be fair: I'm 30 years old and I haven't seen Hindi imposition pursued with as much zeal as it has been in the past 3 years.

It's interesting that you take the phrase "efforts to impose Hindi" to mean an unprecedented attempt, because nowhere do they state that this is an original idea or the first such attempt.

I don't see how that line suggests that "Modi thought of it first", especially since the paragraph before talks about historic loss of languages.

Reading that statement, as written, it comes across as if the "ruling Hindu nationalist BJP" is trying to impose Hindi. There's no mention of other attempts in the past.

But the reality is: ever since India became independent in 1947, various political parties, including the Congress party, have considered making Hindi the national language: https://www.quora.com/Did-Prime-Minister-of-India-Jawaharlal...

I am from Kerala (South India). Hindi imposition never bothered me until the last 2 years. I don't know if it's media's effect, but it is a really valid concern for me. Considering that Kerala exists more or less thanks to money from Gulf countries and little help from the center, I won't mind a separation either.

It is the media. No one bothers to remember the anti-Hindi riots during the Congress rule. Things were much, much worse then.

Ohh really !! You should probably leave India then. BTW why bother speaking English ? Why not speak Malayalam everywhere ?

Why do you think that the BBC is pushing its own agenda here, rather than accurately quoting the concerns and views of the person that they are profiling?

I mean, it may be an attack on their linguistic plurality but the flip side of that plurality is that English is the de-facto national language rather than a language native to India. Not saying either viewpoint is more correct than the other, but I've heard both positions expressed.

Earlier governments, in general, weren't so vehement about language forcing. But this government is going too far with not only language forcing but also with cow worshipping, minorities hounding, history distortions, jingoism, suppression of freedom of speech.

In any case, pls don't make HN a political forum.

that is just the BBC being BBC, i mean nothing short of a highly detailed analysis showing their bias against India would even change the image to a western crowd about an issue like this.

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