Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday alleged that the new curriculum framework announced by the Central Board of Secondary Education is a “calculated and deeply concerning attempt at linguistic imposition”.

The curriculum, announced on Thursday, will make studying a third language compulsory in Class 6 from the 2026-’27 academic session, The Indian Express reported. At least two of the three languages will need to be Indian ones, and English will be considered a foreign language.

Stalin on Saturday contended that for students in southern states, this would effectively translate to compulsory Hindi learning.

“Yet, where is the reciprocity?” the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader asked. “Will students in Hindi-speaking states be mandated to learn Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam – or even languages like Bengali and Marathi?”

Stalin alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government, under the guise of promoting Indian languages, was “aggressively advancing a centralising agenda that privileges Hindi while systematically marginalising India’s rich and diverse linguistic heritage”.

He asserted: “The so-called three-language formula is, in reality, a covert mechanism to expand Hindi into non-Hindi speaking regions.”

Stalin contended that even as the Centre had not made Tamil a mandatory language in Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan schools and had consistently failed to appoint enough Tamil teachers, it was now seeking “to lecture states on promoting Indian languages”.

However, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan alleged that Stalin’s claim about Hindi imposition was “a tired attempt to mask political failures”.

“By misrepresenting a flexible policy as ‘compulsory Hindi’, you are not defending Tamil; you are creating barriers that deny our youth the opportunity to become multilingual global leaders,” Pradhan said in a social media post.

The education minister contended that it would be misplaced to portray multilingualism as a threat. “Tamil is not weakened by the learning of additional languages; it is enriched when its speakers are multilingual, confident and linguistically empowered,” Pradhan said.

The education minister claimed that Stalin’s argument about the lack of reciprocity ignored ground realities. He said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, “Tamil has been celebrated as a national treasure – from the Kashi Tamil Sangamam to the global stage”.

Stalin, however, said that it would be “plainly dishonest” to claim that there is no Hindi imposition.

“What third Indian language is actually being implemented in schools across Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat?” he asked. “How many PM SHRI Schools genuinely offer South Indian languages such as Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, and languages like Bengali, Odia, and Marathi in northern India?”