TN: Stalin, EPS criticise LIC over Hindi ‘imposition’

Chennai, Nov 19 Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) have strongly criticised the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), accusing the public-sector insurance major of imposing Hindi on its website users.

Stalin, in a social media post on X, referred to reports about the predominance of Hindi on LIC’s portal and highlighted that even the language selection option for English was displayed in Hindi.

“This is nothing but a cultural and linguistic imposition, trampling on India’s diversity. LIC grew with the patronage of all Indians. How dare it betray the majority of its contributors,” the Chief Minister said.

He demanded an immediate rollback of what he termed “linguistic tyranny.”

EPS, the AIADMK general secretary who is also the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, also criticised LIC for making its updated website inaccessible to non-Hindi speakers.

“The language selection option being in Hindi makes navigation impossible for non-Hindi users,” he said.

EPS further accused the Central government of promoting Hindi persistently and called for English to be set as the default website language.

He emphasised that such linguistic imposition is inappropriate in India’s multilingual and multicultural context.

The Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder and influential Vanniyar community leader, S. Ramadoss, also joined the chorus of criticism.

He labelled the prioritisation of Hindi on LIC’s portal as unacceptable given the insurer’s diverse customer base.

In a social media post, Ramadoss stated: “Giving sudden priority to Hindi alone is not acceptable. LIC’s customer base includes speakers of many languages across India. The homepage should immediately be changed to English, and a Tamil version of the website should also be launched.”

Interestingly, the PMK is an alliance partner of the BJP and a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Tamil Nadu.

DMK MP T.K.S. Elangovan also criticised the Central government for disregarding India’s linguistic plurality.

“This government thinks India is a country with only one language. Even within Hindi-speaking areas, people fight for the rights of their regional languages,” he said in a social media post.

Elangovan alleged that the website changes were aimed at deterring non-Hindi speakers from engaging with LIC.

Amid the political uproar, LIC issued a clarification, stating that the issue was caused by a technical glitch.

In a post on X, LIC said: “Our corporate website was not shuffling the language page due to a technical problem. The issue has now been resolved, and the website is available in both English and Hindi. The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.”