Social activist Tamanna Hashmi has filed a case against Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray in a court in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly insulting the Hindi language. The case was filed on Monday in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Arti Kumari Singh, which fixed December 12 as the date for hearing the matter.
The complainant who sought a case against Thackeray under Indian Penal Code sections 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 296 (Disturbing religious assembly) and 298 (Uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person), said that she was disturbed by the report aired on various news channels wherein Thackeray allegedly said that Hindi was not the country’s national language and went on to abuse it.
Under these IPC sections, the accused could be sent to jail for one to two years or fined or both.
Hashmi went on to say that Raj Thackeray’s comments have not only aggrieved her but also insulted the entire country and all other Hindi loving people.
Addressing the North Indian community at an event organised by a Uttar Bhartiya Mahapanchayat in Mumbai’s Kandivali in Hindi language, Thackeray said, “Hindi is undoubtedly a beautiful language but it’s wrong that it’s the national language. Never ever was a decision made upon on national language. Like there is the Hindi language, there is Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, all of these are also the languages of this nation.”
Continuing his scathing attack on North Indians, he asserted, “People from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar come to Maharashtra. Then people who are thrown out of their states also come to Maharashtra, is this state any less burdened? Whenever there are jobs available in Maharashtra its advertisement reaches Uttar Pradesh but is not advertised locally.”
Further substantiating his stance, Thackeray said that youth from Maharashtra should be given priority if there are any job opportunities in the state.
Raj Thackeray and his party have displayed their animosity for people from other states many times in the past. In fact, in one of his speeches, Raj Thackeray had also mentioned how Vasai ‘feels like Gujarat’ these days.
On several occasions, they have attacked people from other states in Maharashtra. MNS has regularly attacked migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and there have been reports of shops being vandalised for no displaying signboards in Marathi.
In July last year, too, it was reported that MNS workers had vandalised Gujarati signboards in Dadar since they felt the Gujarati signboards ‘sidelined’ Marathi language.
