And politicos down South have, though belatedly, realised that their march towards the corridors of power in Delhi minus Hindi will be a wee bit difficult.
After Jayalalithaa, Deve Gowda and Chandrababu Naidu, Kanimozhi is brushing up her Hindi
Power comes not just from the barrel of the gun, but from learning a “language” too. And politicos down South have, though belatedly, realised that their march towards the corridors of power in Delhi minus Hindi will be a wee bit difficult.
Even those who had backed anti-Hindi riots in Tamil Nadu in the sixties, have begun shedding their antipathy to the language.
After former prime minister Deve Gowda, former Tamil Nadu chief minister and
AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa, former Andhra Pradesh CM and Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Nadu, it is the turn of DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi and his grandson Uday (son of MK Stalin) to learn the national language.
It marks a major departure from the tumultuous times when Tamil Nadu rose in revolt against Hindi.
The 39-year-old Kanimozhi, considered the DMK’s answer to Jayalalithaa in the long-run, has emerged as the centre for important political conclaves in Chennai and Delhi. She has replaced Karunanidhi’s estranged grand nephew Dayanidhi Maran as the link between the DMK chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Though a staunch defender of Tamil culture, sources said Kanimozhi is brushing up her Hindi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, a fellow Rajya Sabha MP, with whom she has struck a good rapport, is helping her.
Kanimozhi may also get a helping hand from fellow Tamil and Congress general secretary Jayanti Natarajan, who has grown to be a friend.
In fact, Jayalalithaa took everyone by surprise when she addressed a huge gathering of farmers in chaste Hindi at Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, the first political leader of standing from Tamil Nadu to do so.
The 59-year-old Naidu, convenor of the regional grouping — the United National Progressive Alliance, is taking lessons and reading two Hindi newspapers every day. Like Sonia Gandhi, Naidu recently addressed two farmers' rallies in Hindi in the UP towns – Etawah and Azamgarh — reading Hindi written in Telugu script. Gandhi delivers Hindi speeches written in Roman script.In his earlier avatar as United Front government convenor, Naidu tried to master the national language during 1996-97, but gave up after a short while.
k_benedict@dnaindia.net 
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