Nitish Kumar's Tirade Against English At I.N.D.I. Alliance Meet Goes Beyond Ideological Aversion To The Language

Political circles in New Delhi and Patna are abuzz with speculation over the reasons behind Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s conduct and utterances at the fourth meeting of the I.N.D.I. Alliance in New Delhi Tuesday (19 December). 

Nitish Kumar’s flare-up over an inconsequential matter at the meeting ruffled many feathers and even generated considerable anger within the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).

Kumar was visibly upset when Mamata Banerjee proposed Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s name as the bloc’s prime ministerial candidate. 

He held his silence, but remained sullen.

A little after that, while he was speaking in Hindi on the  need to frame a common minimum programme of sorts for the Bloc, Rashtriya Janata Dal Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha interrupted him. 

“Baaluji (DMK leader T R Baalu) is not able to understand what you are saying in Hindi. He has requested me to translate your speech. Please allow me to do so while you speak,” Jha told Kumar. 

At this, Kumar flared up and said: “Hindi is our national language. We call our country Hindustan, everyone should be able to understand Hindi.“

He told Jha not to translate his speech.

Kumar then launched a tirade against English, calling it a foreign language imposed on the country by the British.

“We have to get over our colonial mindset and reject English. We should speak in our native tongue, but also be able to speak in our Rashtrabhasha which is Hindi,” Kumar said angrily. 

What surprised all present was that Jha had translated the speeches of Kumar and his own party leader Lalu Prasad Yadav at the last three I.N.D.I Alliance meetings. Nitish Kumar had never raised any objection then. 

Kumar also made another surprising remark while continuing his diatribe against the use of English. “We live in Hindustan. We should call our country Bharat from now on,” he said. 

That also triggered more consternation because Opposition parties have strongly criticised the BJP’s reported attempts to accord primacy to ‘Bharat’ over ‘India’. 

Sonia Gandhi reportedly looked sharply at Nitish Kumar when he said this. But Nitish Kumar disregarded her. 

A few Left leaders, including CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, intervened after Kumar finished speaking and said that contentious issues like language should not be brought up. 

After Nitish Kumar, Lalu Yadav also spoke in Hindi and Jha did not translate his speech as he had done in the last three meetings. 

But as if to compensate for what some leaders felt was Nitish Kumar’s ‘churlish behaviour’, a few of them spoke in English. Arvind Kejriwal, for instance, who mostly speaks in Hindi at such gatherings, made it a point to speak in English. 

However, many wondered why Nitish Kumar had flared up and made remarks which he knew would upset other parties from South India. 

Kumar’s brazen display of insensitivity and his rage was shocking and raised speculation on what could have been the trigger for such behaviour. 

While his ideological disapproval of the use of English, influenced by mentor Karpoori Thakur, is well-known, it may not have been the trigger in this particular case.

It could have been Mamata Banerjee’s suggestion — backed by Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav — to make Kharge the Bloc’s prime ministerial candidate. That would have been upsetting for Kumar, say his party colleagues in the Janata Dal (United). 

Another reason could be Kumar’s growing frustration with the I.N.D.I Alliance and the Congress. A seasoned politician, Kumar knows that efforts at forging a strong alliance against the BJP are faltering. 

He blames the Congress for not doing enough to get all the Opposition parties together. He is also acutely aware that his days as the Bihar chief minister are numbered and he will have to vacate his chair for his deputy Tejaswi Yadav. 

Kumar has been hoping that he would be made the convenor of the I.N.D.I. Alliance. But the Congress has been cold to this; consequently, other parties have also remained silent. 

Kumar, BJP Bihar president Samrat Choudhury told Swarajya, can see the writing on the wall. “He will have to relinquish the CM’s post soon and will find no place at the Centre because his dream of heading an alliance to unseat the BJP is being dashed. So he is frustrated and behaving like this,” said Choudhary.