Madras Anti-Hindi Agitation of 1965 - Two Months of Riots

Two Months of Riots

As the riots spread, police responded with lathi charges and firing on student processions. This further inflamed the situation. Acts of arson, looting and damage to public property became common. Railway cars and Hindi name boards at railway stations were burned down; telegraph poles were cut and railway tracks displaced. The Bhaktavatsalam Government considered the situation as a law and order problem and brought in para military forces to quell the agitation. Incensed by police action, violent mobs killed two police men. Five agitators (Sivalingam, Aranganathan, Veerappan, Muthu, and Sarangapani) committed suicide by pouring gasoline and setting themselves on fire and three more (Dandapani, Muthu, and Shanmugam) died by consuming poison. (a sixth suicide by self immolatation – by Sarangapani of Mayavaram occurred two weeks later). In two weeks of riots, around 70 people were killed (by official estimates). Some unofficial reports put the death toll as high as 500. A large number of students were arrested. The damage to property was assessed as one crore Rupees.

On 28 January, classes in Madras University, Annamalai University and other colleges and schools in the state were suspended indefinitely. Within the Congress, opinion was divided – On 31 January, a group of Congress leaders including Mysore Chief minister S.Nijalingappa, Bengal Congress leader Atulya Ghosh, Union Minister Sanjeeva Reddy and Congress president K. Kamaraj met in Bangalore and issued an appeal not to force Hindi on non-Hindi speaking areas as they believed it might endanger the unity of the country. Morarji Desai refused their demands regretting that Hindi was not made official before the anti-Hindi protests crystallised. He said Congress leaders in Madras should convince people there and no regional sentiments should come in the move to forge the integration of the country. Union Home Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda agreed with Bhaktavatsalam's handling of the agitation and commended him for standing "hard as a rock".

Rioting continued throughout the first week of February. On 6 February, student representatives met Bhatavatsalam to find a compromise. But the talks failed and violence continued unabated. Processions, fasts, general strikes, burning of Hindi books, destruction of Hindi name boards, agitations in front of Post offices became commonplace. By the second week of February the students had lost control of protests. Annadurai (who had been released on 1 February) condemned the violence and asked the students to suspend the movement. But violence continued unabated. Efforts were made by both sides to find a compromise – Indira Gandhi visited Madras to try and reconcile the situation, while Bhaktavatsalam toned down his stance and started advocating "permanent bilingualism". In a Union cabinet meeting on 11 February, C. Subramaniam, the Minister for Food, demanded statutory recognition for English as official Language. When he was voted down, he resigned along with another minister from Madras State (O. V. Alagesan).

Faced with open revolt in his cabinet, Shastri remained unfazed. He recommended the acceptance of their resignations to the Indian president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Radhakrishnan refused his recommendations by saying "Do you want to lose Tamil Nadu from India?. If not, kindly take back your recommendation". Shastri backed down and made a broadcast through All India Radio on 11 February. Expressing shock over the riots, he promised to honour Nehru's assurances. Further he made four assurances of his own:

Every state will have complete and unfettered freedom to continue to transact its own business in the language of its own choice, which may be the regional language or English. Communications between one State to another will either be in English or will be accompanied by authentic English translation. The non-Hindi states will be free to correspond with the Central Government in English and no change will be made in this arrangement without the consent of the non-Hindi States. In the transaction of business at the Central level, English will continue to be used.

Later he added a fifth assurance: The All India Civil Services examination would continue to be conducted in English rather than in Hindi alone.