Three-language policy is dangerous, says TNCC president

Manikkam Tagore | Photo credit: KVS GIRI

Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president Manickam Tagore on Saturday said the Centre’s trilingual policy was “dangerous” and would undermine the country’s integrity, social justice and secular fabric.

“If the Center introduces Hindi or Sanskrit in the name of trilingual policy, it will have to pay a heavy political price,” he said in a statement.

Urging the Union government to scrap the mandatory implementation of the tri-language policy in CBSE schools, Mr. Tagore said education should be moved from the concurrent list to the state list. “Only state governments can understand the aspirations of the local people and create a curriculum that reflects their needs,” Mr. Tagore said.

The Congress MP, who was recently appointed as the president of the TNCC, described as a “fraud” the argument that if non-Hindi-speaking states taught Hindi, Hindi-speaking states could in turn teach languages ​​like Tamil.

“In most Hindi-speaking states, there is no infrastructure or necessary facilities for teaching non-Hindi languages. This argument is only a means to impose Hindi and Sanskrit. As far as TNCC is concerned, no language should be imposed. People should learn the language out of interest. But the three-language policy will disproportionately affect the non-Hindi speaking states,” he said.

Mr. Tagore said that while the study of foreign languages ​​like German and French opened up job opportunities, making an Indian language compulsory as a third language would in practice pave the way for the introduction of Hindi or Sanskrit.

Published – 05 Jul 2026 0:26 IST