Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Tuesday accused the Life Insurance Corporation of India of imposing Hindi after its website briefly displayed Hindi as the default setting on its home page.
The public sector insurance company said that the option to shuffle languages on the website had not been working due to technical problems, which were later resolved. The website now has English as the default language with an option to switch to other languages, including Hindi.
However, Stalin on Tuesday alleged that the LIC website had been “reduced to a propaganda tool for Hindi imposition” and shared screenshots of Hindi text on it.
“Even the option to select English is displayed in Hindi,” he said. “This is nothing but cultural and language imposition by force, trampling on India’s diversity.”
Pattali Makkal Katchi founder S Ramadoss also said that prioritising Hindi was unacceptable in view of the Life Insurance Corporation’s linguistically diverse customer base. The party is a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami also said that imposing any one language was unacceptable, as India is a country of diverse languages and cultures.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was earlier a member of the National Democratic Alliance, but left the coalition in September.
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