Mumbai: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on Sunday urged people of the state to speak in Marathi and demanded that the language be made compulsory in schools from classes 1 to 10.
Justifying his statement, he said, "If Prime Minister Narendra Modi can't hide his love for his own mother tongue and state, why should we hide our love for Marathi and Maharashtra?"
Addressing the Vishwa Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in Navi Mumbai Thackeray said he is earnestly appealing to the people of Maharashtra to speak in Marathi. School Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar, who was present on the dais said Marathi has already been made a compulsory subject in all schools from class 1 to 10 in Maharashtra.
Thackeray said that he is a staunch Marathi and has imbibed his love for the language from his father and many elderly people in the state including Balasaheb Thackeray. "As I came to understand Marathi, I fell more in love with the language. I insist on speaking Marathi and acting in Marathi. I have no objection to other languages. Marathi-medium schools are being shut down in Maharashtra while such schools are being opened in America. Marathi speaking people are spread all over the world. They have gone to other countries for work, industry, business and employment," he said.
According to Thackeray, Marathi language is rich and great and people of the state should take pride in speaking their mother tongue. He said that Europe is smaller than Maharashtra but while doing business and interacting, Europeans speak their own language. "But we shy away to speak Marathi. Hindi has never been the national language because we never had any national language. Hindi is a language just like the other languages namely Tamil, Gujarati, Assamese, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and others," he said
He urged people to connect with each other in Marathi and alleged that political efforts are on to sideline the language.
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