Wrote this as mail to Chief Electoral
Office, Kerala. contactus@ceo.kerala.gov.in dated. 20/10/2018.
Dear Madam/Sir,
Greetings! I wish to introduce myself only as vijayakumar from Thiruvananthapuram. But the reason why I am writing this mail may require different kind of introduction: I’m vijayakumar from Thiruvananthapuram, completed post-graduation from Tamilnadu. I can communicate in three languages viz., Tamil, English and Malayalam. I don’t know Hindi.
Yesterday I went to watch a Tamil movie- vadachennai. Since, it’s a Tamil film I don’t need to explain who were the audience are. I’ve seen few advertisements before the film starts and during interval. I felt I need to write about the two advertisements from government side and the information I am getting. I also need to clarify something about it.
First, an advertisement from Police Department, related to traffic. The entire advertisement is shooted in North India. The traffic inspector character is well played by actor Akshay Kumar. Not surprisingly, the advertisement is in this region’s language, Malayalam. I enjoyed it very much for its humor sense.
Second one is from Election Commission of India. Where some people sitting in sofa and talking in some language, which majority of us don’t speak and understand here, Hindi I think. Finally I understood that, the advertisement from your side only by some text shown in English in the ending seconds.
I have some questions and requests based on these two advertisements.
1. I hope both the advertisements for the welfare of the public. But, one department knows we should serve people in their language and other don’t. Is it that much harder for our Election Commission of India to dub this 1-2 min video in regional language?
2. I think the Constitution of India also directs the Union government offices to communicate with people in category C states in their language, we have seen the other department obeys. But why not in the Election Commission’s advertisement? – which is an autonomous body? Or its primary motto is Hindi imposition and serving the people is secondary?
3. I won’t be writing this if I went to a Hindi film and saw the same. But telecasting in between a Tamil film, where the majority of the audience is less likely to know Hindi is a bit surprising!
The election commission may claim/predicted majority of the audience may know Hindi. But I request the same commission to consider minorities like me. Without that how the Election Commission can achieve its goal- which was shown in English in the same advertisement - no Indian should be left unvoted – something like that?
4. I have a huge respect on our Election Commission. Because of their tireless work and inventions only Indian union stands as the largest and oldest democratic country in the world, which is well known for treating its citizens equally – only one vote for every citizen.
But in this issue, I don’t feel I was treated as an equal citizen as Hindi speaking citizen. Hence, I request the Election Commission of India to serve in my language.
There are possibilities for mistakes from my side as a misunderstanding or from the theater side. I request you to correct if I’m wrong.
thank you...
Nice
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