Fadnavis: ‘No one should be targeted for not knowing Marathi … won’t tolerate violence’

“Pride in Marathi in Maharashtra is of utmost importance. But we will not tolerate hooliganism and violence in the name of language. The police have filed an FIR in the case, and action has been taken. In the future, if anyone tries to take the law into their own hands, they will face action. We are proud of Marathi, but no other Indian language will be insulted,” Fadnavis told reporters outside the Assembly.

The CM said 51% of Marathis in the state had voted for the Mahayuti alliance, and no one should “claim monopoly on the Marathi population”. Traders should not be targeted for not knowing Marathi, he said, adding that Marathi businessmen in other states might also not know the local language there. “We can urge them (businessmen and others) to learn Marathi, but we cannot be obstinate about it. It won’t be proper. We live in India. We cannot be so conservative.”

Fadnavis’s remarks came a day after his administration issued a resolution announcing that October 3 would be celebrated annually as “Classical Marathi Language Day”, following the Centre’s decision last year to confer the classical language status on Marathi. The government also said that October 3 to 9 would be marked as “Classical Marathi Language Week” each year.

The CM’s warning that violence on the language issue would not be tolerated came a day before the Shiv Sena (UBT) and MNS are set to hold a joint victory rally in Mumbai to celebrate the state government’s rollback of two resolutions on a contentious three-language policy that inducted Hindi as the third language in primary schools. This will be the first joint rally of Thackeray cousins Uddhav and Raj since the latter broke away from the Shiv Sena in 2005 and floated the MNS.

With the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections slated to be held in the next few months, the language issue has polarised state politics. If the Thackerays unite, it can consolidate the Marathi votebank and cause problems for the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance. The BJP will be looking to safeguard its non-Marathi, and mainly north Indian and Gujarati, votebank. With around 30-35% Marathi population in the BMC areas, the tussle over language can cause problems for the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena too. The cosmopolitan demography of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which includes key municipal corporations such as Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, Mira-Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar, and Bhiwandi, may also get polarised over the issue.

On Friday, asked about Eknath Shinde’s “Jai Gujarat” slogan at a recent event attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Pune, Fadnavis said, “It was a programme by Gujarati people in Pune. When we go to such events, we speak based on the people before us. Let’s not be conservative by thinking his (Shinde’s) love for Maharashtra has decreased just because he said ‘Jai Gujarat’. We are Indians. We are proud of Maharashtra, but can’t hate neighbouring states. We, Marathis, are universal in our approach. It is wrong to be conservative.”