A BJP councillor was seen threatening an African national to learn Hindi within a month or else he would not be allowed inside a public park where he teaches football in Delhi. Renu Chaudhary shared the now-viral video of her ultimatum on her own Instagram page. After the video sparked outrage online, she issued a clarification, saying her intention was not to threaten anyone.
The African national has reportedly lived in the area for nearly 15 years and works as a private football coach.
"You still haven't learnt Hindi. Why didn't you? If you don't learn Hindi within a month, you will be barred from using the park," Chaudhary is seen saying in the video.
When her threat was met with laughter from bystanders, who initially took the ultimatum as banter, the councillor doubled down. "This is not something to laugh at. I am serious about this. I warned him eight months ago. If you are earning money in this country, you should learn the language of this country as well," she said.
"I warned him eight months ago. That time I let him go after the people living in the society requested me to, as he teaches their children," she added.
The Clarification
Following the backlash, the councillor from Patparganj Ward 197 said that her intention was not to threaten anyone but rather to ease communication between the coach and local authorities. She claimed that most employees of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which governs the park, do not understand English.
This, she argued, leads to serious misunderstandings as the African coaches do not speak basic Hindi despite living in India for years.
"What happened was that I had asked him eight months ago to pay revenue, as that was an MCD park, and he was using it for commercial activities. Since he was charging children for football lessons, I asked him to pay revenue to the MCD. He told me that he doesn't understand Hindi. The MCD official had also said that since he didn't know Hindi, they were finding it difficult to communicate with him," she said in a video message.
Chaudhary said that she then asked him to learn basic Hindi and also offered to arrange a tutor for him.
" I offered to arrange a tutor for him, so he could learn basic Hindi. And I will pay for that. But he didn't pay any heed to this."
Defending her demand, she said, "I don't think whatever I said was wrong. Most of the people in our country speak Hindi, so there is nothing wrong (for foreigners) in learning the language."
