NEW DELHI, INDIA — A small technical problem on Tuesday with the Lok Sabha’s translation equipment sparked a heated language controversy. Opposition members requested that BJP MP Nishikant Dubey give his statement in English, even though he refused.
Dubey, who had already started his speech in Hindi, didn’t back down even when the translation services had a problem. “This is a technical problem for the Lok Sabha, not me.” “I only know Hindi, so I’ll speak in Hindi,” he said, pushing back against the Opposition’s demands.
When Dubey was told to switch to English, he was rude and angry. “It’s a language from another country.” “Yes, I would have been happy to speak in Tamil or Bengali,” he said, making it clear that he would rather speak in Indian languages than English.
Dilip Saikia, who was in charge of the session from the Chair, tried to calm things down by telling the House that translation services were being restored. But the Opposition kept telling Dubey to switch languages, which showed that there was more going on than just a disagreement.
Dubey then took issue with what he saw as the Opposition’s hypocrisy, asking, “For 30 minutes, someone spoke in Bengali and no one from Tamil Nadu said anything.” But now there’s a problem with Hindi? He went on to say, “Congress and its allies have a problem with North Indians,” and then gave a harsh warning: “A day will come when the whole country will be enslaved by English.”
This event also brought to light the recent language choices of Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs Sayani Ghosh and Kalyan Banerjee. They chose to speak in Bengali in the House, which is different from the customary practice of TMC leaders speaking in English or Hindi. Article 120 of the Constitution lets members speak their native language in Parliament, although this change seemed to reflect problems within the TMC itself. Saugata Roy, a long-time MP, openly denounced Kalyan Banerjee earlier this year, saying, “He should be removed as chief whip of the parliamentary party.” He is not fit for the job since he speaks bad English and acts inappropriately, which shows that language skills and behavior are still touchy subjects even inside parties.
The heated argument shows how language differences still exist in Indian parliamentary processes and how strongly people defend regional languages against the idea that English is the most important language.