- Thursday, April 18, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Allegations of imposition of Hindi language on the southern states of India have always been a hot debate and now, it seems the issue has spilled over into the food industry.
A directive from the country’s food safety authority to rename curd packets as “dahi” in Hindi has triggered a row in the southern state of Tamil Nadu with its chief minister and milk producers slamming the move saying it as an attempt to impose Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states. The directive was later reversed and the use of regional common names were allowed.
Curd is called “dahi” in Hindi.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued the directive to the federation of milk producers in the southern state, asking them to change the labels of their curd packets from “curd” in English and “thayir” in Tamil to “dahi” in Hindi, NDTV reported.
The directive was also applicable to other dairy products such as butter and cheese.
Tamil Nadu’s milk producers have objected to the move while their counterparts in the neighbouring Karnataka have urged the FSSAI to allow them continue using their regional languages.
According to them, curd is a generic term that can be used in any language while “dahi” is a specific product that is different from curd in both taste and texture.
Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin also lashed out at the directive calling it a case of “Hindi imposition” and warned that such a call would alienate the people of South India.
The unabashed insistences of #HindiImposition have come to the extent of directing us to label even a curd packet in Hindi, relegating Tamil & Kannada in our own states.
Such brazen disregard to our mother tongues will make sure those responsible are banished from South forever. https://t.co/6qvARicfUw pic.twitter.com/gw07ypyouV
— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) March 29, 2023
“The unabashed insistences of #HindiImposition have come to the extent of directing us to label even a curd packet in Hindi, relegating Tamil & Kannada in our own states. Such brazen disregard to our mother tongues will make sure those responsible are banished from South forever,” he said in a tweet.
Even the chief of the Tamil Nadu chapter of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of prime minister Narendra Modi echoed the chief minister’s voice. K Annamalai of the saffron party said he sought a rollback of the directive, adding that it was not in sync with Modi’s policy of promoting regional languages.
Tamil Nadu has a long history of anti-Hindi protest dating back to the 1930s. It was protests against the imposition of Hindi in the 1960s that had catapulted Stalin’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to power in the state.
On Thursday, the FSSAI withdrew the order and allowed the use of regional common names on curd packets amidst, the Hindu BusinessLine reported.
In a statement, it said that food business operators can use the term “curd” along with the regional common name in brackets on the label.
