We will drive English out of the country vows Mulayam

Not content with having hatao-ed the English 50 years ago, India -- or to be more accurate, a section thereof -- is now attempting to get rid of their language as well.

Specifically, we refer to Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has declared that neither he nor his followers "will rest until English is driven out of the country".

Mulayam Yadav, speaking to party workers at a rally in Madras, touched the prescribed chords when he said that while being against English dominating the country's linguistic map, he was at the same time for declaring all regional languages -- including Tamil -- as official languages not just of the respective regions, but of the entire country.

Yadav's premise is that languages such as Tamil weren't catching on in other parts of the country only because English dominates. And that theory, spiced by a scathing attack on leaders who, as he characterised them, ask for votes in their mother tongues, but spend their parliamentary tenures speaking in English, led the defence minister on to calling for a ban on English in the nation's law-making forum.

The SP leader went on to give himself a little pat, pointing out that after he had made this point in course of a parliamentary session, three MPs including two from Tamil Nadu promised him that in future they would deliver all their speeches in their respective mother tongues.

Playing to the gallery -- which, incidentally, was only moderately full -- Mulayam Yadav said he had never been against the imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking areas of the country.

"I love Tamil so much I included it in the school curriculum in Uttar Pradesh, when I was chief minister," he went on -- to, of course, much applause.

Moving on from the populist plank to the personal one, Mulayam Yadav indicated that when H D Deve Gowda's prime ministerial throne began to rock, he was approached to replace the incumbent. "But I have never aspired for that kind of post, I withdrew my candidature to protect the United Front," he said.

Averring that his party was never against the Women's Quota Bill, as is being made out, Mulayam Yadav clarified that his party had merely asked for the bill to be amended in some respects. "Ours is in fact the only party constitution that favours rights for women, for Muslims, and other minorities," Mulayam argued.

Speaking of his desire to popularise the Samajwadi Party in Tamil Nadu, Mulayam indicated that part of the gameplan would see him making quarterly trips to the state. The SP boss is in fact slated to visit Madurai next month.