National

Raj Thackeray’s ultimatum to English medium schools

MUMBAI: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on Monday intensified his campaign for the Marathi language by giving an ultimatum to English medium schools.

Addressing a press conference, he said English medium schools here and in other places did not teach Marathi as a compulsory language from standard one to ten. “All English medium schools are free to teach German, French and other languages but Marathi is not an option; it has to be compulsory,” he said.

He read out a letter he planned to send all the English medium schools in the city and Maharashtra.

In the letter, he said not teaching Marathi was going against the State’s ethos and if the language was not made compulsory, the MNS would launch an agitation. The schools have been given one academic year to effect this change.

Mr. Thackeray said the schools used the resources of Maharashtra and so they must teach Marathi compulsorily. If there were complaints from parents regarding this, the schools could forward them to him, he said. If the schools did not respond to this letter, the MNS would react, he threatened.

All the Southern States had made their languages compulsory in schools.

“Why am I criticised for raising the issue of Marathi — when the Southern States made their languages compulsory in schools, nobody accused them of being divisive,” he said.

He also issued a series of threats against those who did not respect the Marathi language and culture and said they would be dealt with in the “Marathi way.” Mr. Thackeray, when asked by a reporter to explain the “Marathi way,” said, “You still don’t know what it is?”

Mr. Thackeray also took on shopkeepers who had not yet put up signboards in Marathi. They were legally bound to do so but not everyone had fallen in line, he said. The party is sending letters exhorting shopkeepers to comply within a month. Referring to the migrants issue, he said even though Mumbai paid the highest amount of taxes, it was “Uttar Pradesh which decides who will be the Prime Minister.”

Reading out the Census 2001 figures, he said over 92 lakh people had migrated from Uttar Pradesh and 52 lakh from Bihar. He said in Maharashtra, the Census figures showed that 21 lakh people from Uttar Pradesh had come here.

He also said that the migrants sent out money and he had information that in a year, 82 per cent of the money orders from Maharashtra went to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and the amount was Rs. 1556 crore.

Mr. Thackeray did not spare a daily English newspaper for writing Bombay, instead of Mumbai. He issued a warning that if the paper continued with this, he would not be able to stay quiet.

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