Introduction
One of the most prominent federal crises in Indian history is the ongoing language policy dispute between the central government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the ruling DMK party in Tamil Nadu. The three-language formula at the heart of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is seen by Tamil Nadu as a backdoor Hindi imposition that jeopardizes its linguistic sovereignty and cultural identity. As the state has refused to follow the linguistic stipulations of the NEP, the Union government has withheld Rs 2,151 crore in Samagra Shiksha grants. 40 lakh students are impacted by this impasse, which also brings to light underlying conflicts between regional autonomy and centralized nationalism that may alter India’s federal system. The conflict goes beyond educational policy and represents opposing theories of federalism, the DMK’s support for federal educational autonomy and the BJP’s vision of centralized educational uniformity—confront each other constitutionally in the Tamil Nadu language dispute. This conflict appears in a number of interrelated areas. Politically, it symbolizes the DMK’s opposition to what it portrays as the BJP’s ‘Hindutva policy’ that marginalizes regional languages while imposing Hindi as the ‘sacred’ language; constitutionally, it calls into question the Center’s power to tie federal funding to policy compliance without state approval; and educationally, the three-language formula contradicts with Tamil Nadu’s historically successful two-language policy.[1] Tamil Nadu’s challenge to the Center’s use of “Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan funds as a tool to blackmail the state” goes beyond simple policy disagreements to the essence of Indian federalism.[2] The Tamil Nadu Supreme Court case under Article 131 seeks to clarify the constitutional limits on the central government’s power over states within cooperative federalism. It seeks clarification whether the central government can impose laws or directives on states without exceeding constitutional boundaries, aiming to ensure a balanced and respectful federal relationship as envisioned by the Constitution.[3]
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