Hindi letters on a Sathankulam highway signboard spark language row; Stalin accuses TVK government of a 'U-turn'

A new direction signboard installed by the State Highways Department on the Sathankulam–Nazareth road has dragged the Tamil Nadu government into a language controversy. The board, put up on State Highway 93 in Thoothukudi district, carries the names of Thirunelveli, Alwarthirunagari, Thoothukudi and Tiruchendur in Tamil, English — and, in large letters, Hindi.

Photographs of the board circulated widely on social media on Wednesday and Thursday, with critics pointing out the irony: only weeks earlier, the same government had ordered commercial establishments across the state to replace English name-boards with Tamil ones. The Highways Department's new boards, by contrast, appeared to add a third language.

DMK president M.K. Stalin weighed in on Thursday, accusing the TVK government of a "U-turn". He said the government was now doing precisely what the DMK had accused the central government of doing — imposing Hindi on Tamil Nadu's public infrastructure — and asked whether the state government itself was imposing Hindi. Stalin urged the government to stop "playing games" with the two-language policy.

The board in question has since been altered, according to visuals shared by news channels, with the Hindi text removed, leaving only Tamil and English. There was no official statement from the Highways Department at the time of publication explaining how the Hindi text came to appear on a state highway board.

The incident is not without precedent. Last year, Hindi text on boards along the Thirumayam–Manamadurai national highway was blackened by unidentified persons, and police investigated a similar defacement on the Perambalur–Manamadurai stretch — episodes that underline how politically sensitive the question of Hindi on public signage remains in Tamil Nadu.