Two highways engineers suspended as TVK government acts on Hindi words in Sathankulam signboard

The Tamil Nadu government on Friday suspended an assistant executive engineer and an assistant engineer of the State Highways Department after Hindi words were found on a newly installed direction signboard on the Sathankulam-Nazareth stretch of a state highway in Thoothukudi district.

In an official release, the government said the two officials had violated the state's official two-language policy of Tamil and English, and warned that tough action would follow against any official found breaching the policy. Departmental proceedings have been initiated against both.

The board carried the names of Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Alwarthirunagari and Tiruchendur in Tamil and English - and, in prominent lettering, in Hindi. Photographs of the signboard circulated widely on social media this week, and the Hindi text was later painted over.

The row handed the opposition a ready-made weapon. DMK president M.K. Stalin accused the TVK government of taking up Hindi imposition itself - a burden he said Tamil Nadu had so far faced only from the Union government - and asked whether this was yet another case of the government 'testing the waters' and then doing a U-turn once protests erupted. The PMK too demanded action against those responsible.

The irony is hard to miss: the same government recently ordered commercial establishments across the state to replace English name-boards with Tamil ones. That its own Highways Department then put up Hindi on a state road suggests the language policy is enforced with more enthusiasm on shopkeepers than inside the government - and Friday's suspensions look less like vigilance than damage control.