Second Hindi row in a week: Coimbatore hospital changes medicine covers after Hindi instructions spark row

Coimbatore Medical College Hospital changed its paper covers for medicines on Tuesday after instructions printed in Hindi sparked a controversy, The Hindu reported on October 6. The report said the brown paper covers were replaced with fresh ones and described a photograph of covers carrying instructions in Tamil, English and Hindi. It named DMK leader and former Minister for Industries T. R. B. Raja among the critics and said the row was being read against Tamil Nadu's two-language policy. The Justice is publishing only what that report establishes. The accessible reporting does not show the exact wording on the covers, when the three-language covers were introduced, who approved them, how many were used, or what the hospital, the Health Department or the TVK government has said in response. Those are not details to fill in by inference. They are the first questions the hospital and the department should answer publicly: when did the covers enter a state institution, who cleared the template, have similar covers reached other hospitals, and what language do the replacement covers carry? The Coimbatore report lands days after a clearer official admission in Thoothukudi. Hindi signposts on the Sathankulam-Nazareth state highway carried Tamil, English and Hindi. Two Highways officials, an assistant executive engineer and an assistant engineer, were suspended on October 2. The government said the Hindi inclusion violated the two-language policy and that departmental action was also being taken. DMK and PMK had demanded action. DMK president M. K. Stalin accused the state government itself of taking up the role of Hindi imposition and warned: "The two-language policy is Tamil Nadu's lifeline. Do not play with it!" Language has been the running test of the new government beyond hospital stationery. In September, a Supreme Court Bench urged Tamil Nadu to change its mindset on Hindi and Navodaya schools and gave the state three more months to identify land. School Education Minister Rajmohan Arumugam replied that the government remained committed to the two-language policy and would withhold land. DMK deputy general secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin welcomed that stand and called for a special Assembly session if needed. The stated policy, upheld since a 1968 Assembly resolution, is Tamil and English. That is why a medicine cover matters. A government hospital is not a campaign stage; it is where the state's promise meets a patient who needs instructions she can use and a public institution that follows its own rules. An unexplained third language on a state-issued cover is therefore not a printing curiosity. It is an administrative breach until the government explains otherwise. The remedy is simple and public: name the approval chain, confirm the replacement, and audit the supply. Silence will leave the opposition, and the record of the past week, to do the explaining.