Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu

The anti-Hindi-imposition agitations in Tamil Nadu have been ongoing intermittently in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu (formerly Madras State and part of Madras Presidency) since the early 20th century. The agitations involve several mass protests, riots, student and political movements in Tamil Nadu concerning the official status of Hindi in the state.

The first anti-Hindi-imposition agitation was launched in 1937, in opposition to the introduction of compulsory teaching of Hindi in the schools of Madras Presidency by the first Indian National Congress government led by C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji). This move was immediately opposed by E. V. Ramasamy (Periyar) and the opposition Justice Party. The agitation, which lasted three years, was multifaceted and involved fasts, conferences, marches, picketing and protests. The government responded with a crackdown resulting in the deaths of two protesters and the arrests of 1198 persons including women and children. Mandatory Hindi education was later withdrawn by the British Governor of Madras Lord Erskine in February 1940 after the resignation of the Congress Government in 1939.

The adoption of an official language for the Indian Republic was a hotly debated issue during the framing of the Indian Constitution after India's independence from the United Kingdom. After an exhaustive and divisive debate, Hindi was adopted as the official language of India with English continuing as an associate official language for a period of fifteen years, after which Hindi would become the sole official language. The new Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950. Efforts by the Indian government to make Hindi the sole official language after 1965 were not acceptable to many non-Hindi Indian states, who wanted the continued use of English. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a descendant of Dravidar Kazhagam, led the opposition to Hindi. To allay their fears, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru enacted the Official Languages Act in 1963 to ensure the continuing use of English beyond 1965. The text of the act did not satisfy the DMK and increased their scepticism that his assurances might not be honoured by future administrations.

As the day of switching over to Hindi as sole official language approached (26 January 1965), the anti-Hindi movement gained momentum in Madras with increased support from college students. On 25 January, a full-scale riot broke out in the southern city of Madurai, sparked off by a minor altercation between agitating students and Congress party members. The riots spread all over Madras, continued unabated for the next two months, and were marked by violence, arson, looting, police firing and lathi charges. The Congress government of Madras, called in paramilitary forces to quell the agitation; their involvement resulted in the deaths of about 70 (by official estimates) including two policemen. To calm the situation, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as long as the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri's assurance, as did the student agitation.

The agitations of 1965 led to major political changes in the state. The DMK won the 1967 assembly election and the Congress Party never managed to recapture power in the state since then. The Official Languages Act was eventually amended in 1967 by the Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi to guarantee the indefinite use of Hindi and English as official languages. This effectively ensured the current "virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism" of the Indian Republic. There were also two similar (but smaller) agitations in 1968 and 1986 which had varying degrees of success. In the 21st century, numerous agitations in various forms have been continuing intermittently in response to covert and overt attempts of Hindi promulgation.

## Background

The Republic of India has hundreds of languages. During the British Raj, English was the official language. When the Indian independence movement gained momentum in the early part of the 20th century, efforts were undertaken to make Hindi as a common language to unite linguistic groups against the British government. As early as 1918, Mahatma Gandhi established the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha (Institution for the Propagation of Hindi in South India). In 1925, the Indian National Congress switched the language of its official business from English to Hindi. Both Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were supporters of Hindi and Congress wanted to propagate the learning of Hindi in non-Hindi speaking provinces of India. The idea of making Hindi the common language forcefully, was not acceptable to Periyar, who viewed it as an attempt to make Tamils subordinate to North Indians.

## Agitation of 1937–1940

The Indian National Congress won the 1937 elections in Madras Presidency. Rajaji became the chief minister on 14 July 1937. He was a supporter of propagating Hindi in South India. On 11 August 1937, within a month of coming to power, he announced his intention to introduce Hindi language teaching in secondary schools by issuing a policy statement. On 21 April 1938, he issued a government order making the teaching of Hindi compulsory in 125 secondary schools in the presidency. Periyar and the opposition Justice Party led by A. T. Panneerselvam immediately opposed the move. They started state-wide protests against Rajaji and Hindi.

The agitation was backed by Periyar's Self-Respect Movement and Justice Party. It also had the support of Tamil scholars like Maraimalai Adigal, Somasundara Bharathiar, K. Appadurai, Mudiyarasan and Ilakkuvanar. In December 1937, Tamil Saivite scholars were among the first to announce their opposition to the Hindi teaching in the Saiva Sidhandha Maha Samaja conference at Velur. Women also participated in the agitation in large numbers. Moovalur Ramamirtham, Narayani, Va. Ba. Thamaraikani, Munnagar Azhagiyar, Dr. S. Dharmambal, Malar Mugathammaiyar, Pattammal and Seethammal were some of the women who were arrested for participating in the agitation. On 13 November 1938, the Tamil Nadu Women's Conference was convened to demonstrate women's support for the movement. The agitation was marked by anti-Brahmin sentiments as the protesters believed Brahmins were attempting to impose Hindi and Sanskrit over Tamil. Despite the general anti-Brahminism of the agitation, a few Brahmins like Kanchi Rajagopalachari also participated in the movement. The Tamil speaking Muslims in the Madras presidency supported the agitation (in contrast to the Urdu-speaking Muslims, who supported the propagation of Hindi, since Hindi and Urdu are linguistically the same language called Hindustani). The agitation was marked by fasts, protest marches, processions, picketing of schools teaching Hindi and government offices, anti-Hindi conferences, observing an anti-Hindi day (1 July and 3 December 1938) and black flag demonstrations. It was active in the Tamil speaking districts of the presidency – Ramnad, Tirunelveli, Salem, Tanjore and North Arcot. During the course of the agitation, two protesters – Natarajan and Thalamuthu – lost their lives in police custody.

The ruling Congress Party was divided on the Hindi issue. While Rajaji and his supporters stuck to their position, Sathyamurti and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan were against it. They wanted Rajaji to make Hindi optional or to provide a conscience clause for allowing parents to withhold their children from Hindi classes. But Rajaji was firm in his stance. The police response to the agitation grew progressively brutal in 1939. During the agitation, a total of 1,198 protesters were arrested and out of them 1,179 were convicted (73 of those jailed were women and 32 children accompanied their mothers to prison). Periyar was fined 1,000 rupees and sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment for inciting "women to disobey the law" (he was released within six months on 22 May 1939 citing medical grounds) and Annadurai was jailed for four months. On 7 June 1939, all those arrested for participating in the agitations were released without explanation. Rajaji also organised pro-Hindi meetings to counter the agitators. On 29 October 1939, the Congress government resigned protesting the involvement of India in the Second World War, and the Madras provincial government was placed under governor's rule. On 31 October, Periyar suspended the agitation and asked the governor to withdraw the compulsory Hindi order. On 21 February 1940, Governor Erskine issued a press communique withdrawing compulsory Hindi teaching and making it optional.

## Agitations of 1946–1950

From 1946 to 1950, there were sporadic agitations against Hindi by the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) and Periyar. Whenever the government introduced Hindi as a compulsory language in schools, anti-Hindi protests happened and succeeded in stopping the move. The largest anti-Hindi imposition agitations in this period occurred from 1948 to 1950. After India's independence in 1947, the Congress government at the centre urged all states to make Hindi compulsory in schools. The Congress government of Madras Presidency under Omandur Ramasamy Reddiar complied and made Hindi compulsory in the 1948–49 academic year. It also introduced a minimum qualification in Hindi for the promotion of students to higher classes. Periyar once again launched agitation against the imposition of Hindi. The 1948 agitation was supported by former Congress nationalists like M. P. Sivagnanam and Thiru. Vi. Ka, who recanted their earlier pro-Hindi policies. On 17 July, the DK convened an all party anti-Hindi conference to oppose the compulsory Hindi teaching. As in the agitation from 1938 to 1940, this agitation was also characterized by strikes, black flag demonstrations and anti-Hindi processions. When Rajaji (then the Governor-General of India) visited Madras on 23 August, the DK staged a black flag demonstration against his visit. On 27 August, Periyar and Annadurai were arrested. The government did not change its position on Hindi and the agitation continued. On 18 December, Periyar and other DK leaders were arrested again. A compromise was reached between the government and agitators. The government stopped the legal action against the agitators and they in turn dropped the agitation on 26 December 1948. Eventually, the government made Hindi teaching optional beginning in 1950. Students who did not want to learn Hindi were allowed to participate in other school activities during Hindi classes.

## Official languages and the Indian Constitution

The Indian Constituent Assembly was established on 9 December 1946, for drafting a Constitution when India became independent. The Constituent Assembly witnessed fierce debates on the language issue. The adoption of a National Language, the language in which the Constitution was to be written in and the language in which the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly were to be conducted were the main linguistic questions debated by the framers of the Constitution. On one side were members from the "Hindi-speaking provinces" like Algu Rai Sastri, R.V. Dhulekar, Balkrishna Sharma, Purushottam Das Tandon, (all from United Provinces), Babunath Gupta (Bihar), Hari Vinayak Pataskar (Bombay) and Ravi Shankar Shukla, Seth Govind Das (Central Provinces and Berar). They moved a large number of pro-Hindi amendments and argued for adopting Hindi as the sole National Language. On 10 December 1946, Dhulekar declared "People who do not know Hindi have no right to stay in India. People who are present in the House to fashion a constitution for India and do not know Hindi are not worthy to be members of this assembly. They had better leave."

The members of the Constituent Assembly in favor of recognizing Hindi as the National Language of India was further divided into two camps: the Hindi faction comprising Tandon, Ravi Shankar Shukla, Govind Das, Sampurnanand, and K. M. Munshi; and the Hindi faction represented by Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad. The adoption of Hindi as the national language was opposed by certain Constituent Assembly members from South India like T.T. Krishnamachari, G. Durgabai, T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar, N. G. Ranga, N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar (all belonging to "Madras") and S. V. Krishnamurthy Rao (Mysore). This anti-Hindi block favoured "retaining" English as the "official" language. Their views were reflected in the following pronouncement of Krishnamachari:

> We disliked the English language in the past. I disliked it because I was forced to learn Shakespeare and Milton, for which I had no taste at all. If we are going to be compelled to learn Hindi, I would perhaps not be able to learn it because of my age, and perhaps I would not be willing to do it because of the amount of constraint you put on me. This kind of intolerance makes us fear that the strong Centre which we need, a strong Centre which is necessary will also mean the enslavement of people who do not speak the language at the centre. I would, Sir, convey a warning on behalf of people of the South for the reason that there are already elements in South India who want separation ..., and my honourable friends in U.P. do not help us in any way by flogging their idea of "Hindi Imperialism" to the maximum extent possible. So, it is up to my friends in Uttar Pradesh to have a whole India; it is up to them to have a Hindi-India. The choice is theirs.

After three years of debate, the assembly arrived at a compromise at the end of 1949. It was called the Munshi-Ayyangar formula (after K.M. Munshi and Gopalaswamy Ayyangar) and it struck a balance between the demands of all groups. Part XVII of the Indian Constitution was drafted according to this compromise. It did not have any mention of a "National Language". Instead, it defined only the "Official Languages" of the Union:

Hindi in Devanagari script would be the official language of the Indian Union. For fifteen years, English would also be used for all official purposes (Article 343). A language commission could be convened after five years to recommend ways to promote Hindi as the sole official language and to phase out the use of English (Article 344). Official communication between states and between states and the Union would be in the official language of the union (Article 345). English would be used for all legal purposes – in court proceedings, bills, laws, rules and other regulations (Article 348). The Union was duty bound to promote the spread and usage of Hindi (Article 351).

India became independent on 15 August 1947 and the Constitution was adopted on 26 January 1950.

## The language commission

The adoption of English as official language along with Hindi was heavily criticized by pro-Hindi politicians like Jana Sangh's founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who demanded that Hindi should be made National language. Soon after the Constitution was adopted on 26 January 1950, efforts were made to propagate Hindi for official usage. In 1952, the Ministry of Education launched a voluntary Hindi teaching scheme. On 27 May 1952, use of Hindi was introduced in warrants for judicial appointments. In 1955, in-house Hindi training was started for all ministries and departments of the central government. On 3 December 1955, the government started using Hindi (along with English) for "specific purposes of the Union".

As provided for by Article 343, Nehru appointed the First Official Language Commission under the chairmanship of B. G. Kher on 7 June 1955. The commission delivered its report on 31 July 1956. It recommended a number of steps to eventually replace English with Hindi (the report registered "dissenting notes" from two members – P. Subbarayan from Madras State and Suniti Kumar Chatterji from West Bengal. The Parliamentary Committee on Official Language, chaired by Govind Ballabh Pant was constituted in September 1957 to review the Kher commission report. After two years of deliberations, the Pant Committee submitted its recommendations to the President on 8 February 1959. It recommended that Hindi should be made the primary official language with English as the subsidiary one. The Kher Commission and the Pant Committee recommendations were condemned and opposed by self-described "non-Hindi" politicians like Frank Anthony and P. Subbarayan. The Academy of Telugu opposed the switch from English to Hindi in a convention held in 1956. Rajaji, once a staunch supporter of Hindi, organised an All India Language Conference (attended by representatives of Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Assamese, Oriya, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali languages) on 8 March 1958 to oppose the switch, declaring [that] "Hindi is as much foreign to non-Hindi speaking people as English is to the protagonists of Hindi."

As the opposition to Hindi grew stronger, Nehru tried to reassure the concerns of "non-Hindi speakers". Speaking in the parliamentary debate on a bill introduced by Anthony to include English in the Eighth Schedule, Nehru gave an assurance to them (on 7 August 1959):

> I believe also two things. As I just said, there must be no imposition. Secondly, for an indefinite period – I do not know how long – I should have, I would have English as an associate, additional language which can be used not because of facilities and all that ... but because I do not wish the people of Non-Hindi areas to feel that certain doors of advance are closed to them because they are forced to correspond – the Government, I mean – in the Hindi language. They can correspond in English. So I could have it as an alternate language as long as people require it and the decision for that – I would leave not to the Hindi-knowing people, but to the non-Hindi-knowing people.

This assurance momentarily allayed the fears of the South Indians. But the Hindi proponents were dismayed and Pant remarked "Whatever I achieved in two years, the prime minister destroyed in less than two minutes".

## DMK's "Anti-Hindi imposition" policies

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) which split from the Dravidar Kazhagam in 1949, inherited the anti-Hindi policies of its parent organisation. DMK's founder Annadurai had earlier participated in the anti-Hindi imposition agitations during 1938–40 and in the 1940s. In July 1953, the DMK launched the Kallakudi demonstration against changing the name of a town from Kallakudi to Dalmiapuram. They claimed that the town's name (after Ramkrishna Dalmia) symbolised the exploitation of South India by the North. On 15 July 1953, M. Karunanidhi (later Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu) and other DMK members erased the Hindi name in Dalmiapuram railway station's name board and lay down on the tracks. In the altercation with the police that followed the protests, two DMK members lost their lives and several others including Karunanidhi and Kannadhasan were arrested.

In the 1950s DMK continued its anti-Hindi policies along with the secessionist demand for Dravida Nadu. On 28 January 1956, Annadurai along with Periyar and Rajaji signed a resolution passed by the Academy of Tamil Culture endorsing the continuation of English as the official language. On 21 September 1957 the DMK convened an anti-Hindi Conference to protest against the imposition of Hindi. It observed 13 October 1957 as "anti-Hindi Day". On 31 July 1960, another open air anti-Hindi conference was held at Kodambakkam, Madras. In November 1963, DMK dropped its secessionist demand in the wake of the Sino-Indian War and the passage of the anti-secessionist 16th Amendment to the Indian Constitution. But the anti-Hindi stance remained and hardened with the passage of Official Languages Act of 1963. The DMK's view on Hindi's qualifications for official language status were reflected in Annadurai's response to the "numerical superiority of Hindi" argument: "If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow."

## Official Languages Act of 1963

As the deadline stipulated in Part XVII of the Constitution for switching to Hindi as primary official language approached, the central government stepped up its efforts to spread Hindi's official usage. In 1960, compulsory training for Hindi typing and stenography was started. The same year, India's president Rajendra Prasad acted on the Pant Committee's recommendations and issued orders for preparation of Hindi glossaries, translating procedural literature and legal codes to Hindi, imparting Hindi education to government employees and other efforts for propagating Hindi. Nehru said that the presidential orders did not contradict his earlier assurance and reassured that there would be no imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speakers.

To give legal status to Nehru's assurance of 1959, the Official Languages Act was passed in 1963. In Nehru's own words:

> This is a Bill, in continuation of what has happened in the past, to remove a restriction which had been placed by the Constitution on the use of English after a certain date i.e. 1965. It is just to remove that restriction that this is placed.

The Bill was introduced in Parliament on 21 January 1963. Opposition to the Bill came from DMK members who objected to the usage of the word "may" instead of "shall" in section 3 of the Bill. That section read: "the English language may ... continue to be used in addition to Hindi". The DMK argued was that the term "may" could be interpreted as "may not" by future administrations. They feared that the minority opinion would not be considered and non-Hindi speakers' views would be ignored. On 22 April, Nehru assured the parliamentarians that, for that particular case "may" had the same meaning as "shall". The DMK then demanded, if that was the case why "shall" was not used instead of "may". Leading the opposition to the Bill was Annadurai (then a Member of the Rajya Sabha). He pleaded for an indefinite continuation of the status quo and argued that continued use of English as official language would "distribute advantages or disadvantages evenly" among Hindi and non-Hindi speakers. The Bill was passed on 27 April without any change in the wording. As he had warned earlier, Annadurai launched statewide protests against Hindi. In November 1963, Annadurai was arrested along with 500 DMK members for burning part XVII of the Constitution at an anti-Hindi Conference. He was sentenced to six months in prison. On 25 January 1964, a DMK member, Chinnasamy, committed suicide at Trichy by self-immolation, to protest the "imposition of Hindi". He was claimed as the first "language martyr" of the second round of the anti-Hindi struggle by the DMK.

Nehru died in May 1964 and Lal Bahadur Shastri became Prime Minister of India. Shastri and his senior cabinet members Morarji Desai and Gulzari Lal Nanda were strong supporters of Hindi being the sole official language. This increased the apprehension that Nehru's assurances of 1959 and 1963 would not be kept despite Shastri's assurances to the contrary. Concerns over the preference of Hindi in central government jobs, civil service examinations and the fear that English would be replaced with Hindi as medium of instruction brought students into the anti-Hindi imposition agitation camp in large numbers. On 7 March 1964, the chief minister of Madras State, M. Bhaktavatsalam at a session of the Madras Legislative Assembly recommended the introduction of Three-language formula (English, Hindi and Tamil) in the state. Apprehension over the Three-language formula increased student support for the anti-Hindi cause.

## Agitation of 1965

As 26 January 1965 approached, the anti-Hindi imposition agitation in Madras State grew in numbers and urgency. The Tamil Nadu Students Anti Hindi Agitation Council was formed in January as an umbrella student organisation to coordinate the anti-Hindi efforts. The office bearers of the council were student union leaders from all over Madras State including P. Seenivasan, K. Kalimuthu, Jeeva Kalaimani, Na. Kamarasan, Seyaprakasam, Ravichandran, Tiruppur. S. Duraiswamy, Sedapatti Muthaiah, Durai Murugan, K. Raja Mohammad, Navalavan, M. Natarajan and L. Ganesan.

Several student conferences were organised throughout the state to protest against Hindi imposition. On 17 January, the Madras State Anti-Hindi Conference was convened at Trichy and was attended by 700 delegates from Madras, Maharashtra, Kerala and Mysore. They called for the indefinite suspension of Part XVII of the constitution. The Home and Information & Broadcasting ministries of the central government (headed by Nanda and Indira Gandhi respectively) upped the ante and issued circulars for replacing English with Hindi from 26 January. On 16 January, Annadurai announced that 26 January (also the Republic Day of India) would be observed as a day of mourning. Chief minister Bhaktavatsalam warned that the state government would not tolerate the sanctity of the Republic day blasphemed and threatened the students with "stern action" if they participated in politics. The DMK advanced the "Day of Mourning" by a day. On 25 January, Annadurai was taken into preventive custody along with 3000 DMK members to forestall the agitations planned for the next day. On 26 January, 50,000 students from Madras city's colleges marched from Napier park to the Government secretariat at Fort St. George and unsuccessfully tried to petition the chief minister.

On 25 January, a clash between agitating students and Congress party workers in Madurai went out of control and became a riot. Rioting soon spread to other parts of the State. Police responded with lathi charges and firing on student processions. Acts of arson, looting and damage to public property became common. Railway cars and Hindi name boards at railway stations were burned down; telegraph poles were cut and railway tracks displaced. The Bhaktavatsalam Government considered the situation as a law and order problem and brought in para military forces to quell the agitation. Incensed by police action, violent mobs killed two police men. Several agitators committed suicide by self-immolation and by consuming poison. In two weeks of riots, around 70 people were killed (by official estimates). Some unofficial reports put the death toll as high as 500. A large number of students were arrested. The damage to property was assessed to be ten million rupees.

On 28 January, classes in Madras University, Annamalai University and other colleges and schools in the state were suspended indefinitely. Within the Congress, opinion was divided: one group led by K. Kamaraj wanted the government not to impose Hindi on the Tamils; but others like Morarji Desai did not relent. Home minister Nanda agreed with Bhaktavatsalam's handling of the agitation. Rioting continued throughout the first week of February and by the second week students lost control of the agitation. Violence continued despite Annadurai's appeal for calm. Efforts were made by both sides to find a compromise. On 11 February, C. Subramaniam and O. V. Alagesan, two union ministers from Madras state, resigned protesting the government's language policy. President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan refused to accept the Prime Minister Shastri's recommendation that their resignations be accepted. Shastri backed down and made a broadcast through All India Radio on 11 February. Expressing shock over the riots, he promised to honour Nehru's assurances. He also assured Tamils that English would continue to be used for centre-state and intrastate communications and that the All India Civil Services examination would continue to be conducted in English.

### Impact

Shastri's assurances calmed down the volatile situation. On 12 February, the students council postponed the agitation indefinitely and on 16 February, C. Subramaniam and O. V. Alagesan withdrew their resignations. Sporadic acts of protests and violence continued to happen throughout February and early March. On 7 March, the administration withdrew all the cases filed against the student leaders and on 14 March, the Anti-Hindi Agitation Council dropped the agitation. Shastri's climbdown angered the pro-Hindi activists in North India. Members of Jan Sangh went about the streets of New Delhi, blackening out English signs with tar. The agitation for imposition slowly changed into a general anti-Congress organisation. In the 1967 election, student leader P. Seenivasan contested against Kamaraj in the Virudhunagar constituency. A large number of students from all over the state campaigned for him and ensured his victory: the Congress party was defeated and DMK came to power for the first time in Madras State.

The Anti-Hindi imposition agitations in Tamil Nadu also had a considerable impact on the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Mysore and Kerala. The 1965 agitations evoked a strong response from the Tamils of Bangalore city. In Mysore, over 2000 agitators gathered to protest Hindi and the police had to launch a lathi charge when the agitation grew violent. In Andhra Pradesh, trains were damaged and colleges were shut down.

## Official Languages (Amendment) Act of 1967

### Amendment efforts in 1965

Efforts to amend the Official Languages Act according to Shastri's assurances given in February 1965 faced stiff resistance from the pro-Hindi lobby. On 16 February 55 MPs from 8 different states publicly expressed their disapproval of any change in the Language policy. On 19 February 19 MPs from Maharashtra and Gujarat voiced their opposition for change and on 25 February 106 Congress MPs met the Prime Minister to request him not to amend the act. However, Congress MPs from Madras did not debate the issue on the Parliament floor but met the Prime Minister on 12 March. Congress and opposition parties hesitated to debate the issue in Parliament as they did not wish to make their bitter divisions in public. On 22 February at a meeting in Congress Working Committee, K. Kamaraj pressed for the amendment to Official Languages Act, but received instant opposition from Morarji Desai, Jagjivan Ram and Ram Subhag. The Congress working committee finally agreed to a resolution which amounted to slowing down of Hindi-isation, strong implementation of the three language formula in Hindi and non-Hindi speaking states, and conduct of the public services exam in all regional languages. These decisions were agreed upon during the Chief Ministers' meeting which was held on 24 February.

The three language formula was not strictly enforced either in South or Hindi-speaking areas. The changes to public services exams were impractical and not well received by government officials. The only real concession to the south was the assurance that the Official Languages Act would be modified. However, any effort to follow through with that pledge received stiff resistance. In April 1965, a meeting of a cabinet sub-committee comprising Gulzari lal Nanda, A. K. Sen, Satyanarayan Sinha, Mahavir Tyagi, M. C. Chagla and S. K. Patil and but no southern members debated the issue and could not come to any agreement. The sub-committee recommended the continuation of English and Hindi as joint link languages and was not in favour of either quota system or use of regional languages in public services exams. They drafted an amendment to Official Languages Act incorporating Nehru's assurances explicitly. This Bill guaranteeing the use of English in inter-state and state-Union communications as long as desired by Non-Hindi states was approved for discussion by the Speaker on 25 August. But it was withdrawn after a bitter debate citing inopportune time due to the ongoing Punjabi Suba movement and Kashmir crisis at that time.

### Amendment in 1967

Shastri died in January 1966 and Indira Gandhi became prime minister. The election of 1967 saw Congress retaining power with a reduced majority in the centre. In Madras State, Congress was defeated and DMK came to power thanks to the support of the entire student community who had taken up the challenge thrown by Kamaraj to defeat him in the elections. The Students' Election Army did door to door campaign urging people to vote against Congress to teach them a lesson for all the atrocities committed by the Bhaktavatsalam Government to students under Defence of India Rules etc., P. Sreenivasan defeated Kamaraj in Virudhunagar. In November 1967, a new attempt to amend the Bill was made. On 27 November, the Bill was tabled in Parliament; it was passed on 16 December (by 205 votes to 41 against). It received presidential assent on 8 January 1968 and came into effect. The Amendment modified section 3 of the 1963 act to guarantee the "virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism" (English and Hindi) in official transactions.

## Later agitations

### 1968

The anti-Hindi imposition activists from Madras State were not satisfied with the 1967 Amendment, as it did not address their concerns about the three language formula. However, with DMK in power, they hesitated to restart the agitation. The Tamil Nadu Students' Anti-Hindi Agitation council split into several factions. The moderate factions favored letting Annadurai and the government to deal with the situation. The extremist factions restarted the agitations. They demanded scrapping of the three language formula and an end to teaching of Hindi, abolishing the use of Hindi commands in the National Cadet Corps (NCC), banning of Hindi films and songs and closure of the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachara Sabha (Institution for Propagation of Hindi in South India).

On 19 December 1967, the agitation was restarted. It turned violent on 21 December and acts of arson and looting were reported in the state. Annadurai defused the situation by accepting most of their demands. On 23 January 1968, a resolution was passed in the Legislative Assembly. It accomplished the following:

The Three-Language Policy was scrapped and Hindi was eliminated from the curriculum. Only English and Tamil were to be taught and the use of Hindi commands in the NCC was banned. Tamil was to be introduced as the medium of instruction in all colleges and as the "language of administration" within five years, the Central Government was urged to end the special status accorded to Hindi in the Constitution and "treat all languages equally", and was urged to provide financial assistance for development of all languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. These measures satisfied the agitators and "normalcy" returned by February 1968.

### 1986

In 1986, Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced the "National Education Policy". This education policy provided for setting up Navodaya Schools, where the DMK claimed teaching of Hindi would be compulsory. The Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK) led by M. G. Ramachandran (which had split from the DMK in 1972), was in power in Tamil Nadu and the DMK was the main opposition party. Karunanidhi announced an agitation against the opening of Navodaya schools in Tamil Nadu. The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya program, supported fully by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, was established to identify gifted and talented students from economically disadvantaged and historically neglected communities, throughout every state and Union Territory in India and provide for them an education on par with elite residential schools traditionally available in India only for children of the wealthy as well as children of the political class. On 13 November, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding the repeal of Part XVII of the constitution and for making English the sole official language of the union.

On 17 November 1986, DMK members protested against the new education policy by burning Part XVII of the Constitution. 20,000 DMK members, including Karunanidhi, were arrested. 21 persons committed suicide by self-immolation. Karunanidhi was sentenced to ten weeks of rigorous imprisonment. Ten DMK MLAs including K. Anbazhagan were expelled from the Legislative Assembly by the speaker P. H. Pandian. Rajiv Gandhi assured Members of Parliament from Tamil Nadu that Hindi would not be imposed. As part of the compromise, Navodhaya schools were not started in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Tamil Nadu is the only state in India without Navodaya schools.

### 2014

In 2014, the Home Ministry ordered that "government employees and officials of all ministries, departments, corporations or banks, who have made official accounts on social networking sites should use Hindi, or both Hindi and English but give priority to Hindi". This move was immediately opposed by all the political parties in Tamil Nadu. Terming the move on use of Hindi as being "against letter and spirit" of the Official Languages Act the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa cautioned that this direction may "cause disquiet to the people of Tamil Nadu who are very proud of and passionate about their linguistic heritage", and asked the prime minister to suitably modify the instructions to ensure that English was the language of communication on social media. The major opposition party Indian National Congress advised prudence, expressing fear that such directions may result in a backlash in non-Hindi states, especially Tamil Nadu and also said that the "Government would be well-advised to proceed with caution". These protests ensured the continuous official usage of English.

## Impact

The anti-Hindi imposition agitations of 1937–40 and 1940–50 led to a change of guard in the Madras Presidency. The main opposition party to the Indian National Congress in the state, the Justice Party, came under Periyar's leadership on 29 December 1938. In 1944, the Justice Party was renamed as Dravidar Kazhagam. The political careers of many later leaders of the Dravidian Movement, such as C. N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi, started with their participation in these agitations. The agitations stopped the compulsory teaching of Hindi in the state. The agitations of the 1960s played a crucial role in the defeat of the Tamil Nadu Congress party in the 1967 elections and the continuing dominance of Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu politics. Many political leaders of the DMK and ADMK, like P. Seenivasan, K. Kalimuthu, Durai Murugan, Tiruppur. S. Duraiswamy, Sedapatti Muthaiah, K. Raja Mohammad, M. Natarajan and L. Ganesan, owe their entry and advancement in politics to their stints as student leaders during the agitations, which also reshaped the Dravidian Movement and broadened its political base, when it shifted from its earlier pro-Tamil (and anti-Brahmin) stance to a more inclusive one, which was both anti-Hindi and pro-English. Finally, the current two-language education policy followed in Tamil Nadu is also a direct result of the agitations.

In the words of Sumathi Ramaswamy (professor of history at Duke University),

> [The anti-Hindi imposition agitations knit] together diverse, even incompatible, social and political interests ... Their common cause against Hindi imposition had thrown together religious revivalists like Maraimalai Atikal (1876–1950) with avowed atheists like Ramasami and Bharathidasan (1891–1964); men who supported the Indian cause like T.V. Kalyanasundaram (1883–1953) and M. P. Sivagnanam with those who wanted to secede from India like Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi (b. 1924); university professors like Somasundara Bharati (1879–1959) and M.S. Purnalingam Pillai (1866 -1947) with uneducated street poets, populist pamphleteers and college students.

The anti-Hindi imposition agitations ensured the passage of the Official Languages Act of 1963 and its amendment in 1967, thus ensuring the continued use of English as an official language of India. They effectively brought about the "virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism" of the Indian Republic.

## See also

- Linguistic imperialism
- Hindi–Urdu controversy
- Bengali Language Movement
- Bengali Language Movement (Barak Valley)
- Bengali Language Movement (Manbhum)
- International Mother Language Day
- Hindi imposition in India

Agitation against the imposition of the Hindi language


390 Fifth Avenue

390 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Gorham Building, is an Italian Renaissance Revival palazzo-style building at Fifth Avenue and West 36th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, United States. It was designed by McKim, Mead & White, with Stanford White as the partner in charge, and built in 1904–1906. The building was named for the Gorham Manufacturing Company, a major manufacturer of sterling and silverplate, and was a successor to the former Gorham Manufacturing Company Building at 889 Broadway. The building features bronze ornamentation and a copper cornice.

390 Fifth Avenue was occupied by the Gorham Manufacturing Company between 1905 and 1923. It was then home to Russeks department store from 1924 to 1959, and then Spear Securities from 1960, who changed the street level facade. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1998, after the lower floors were significantly altered from their original design.

## Site

390 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Gorham Building, is in the South Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, on the southwestern corner of Fifth Avenue and 36th Street. The land lot is slightly "L"-shaped and covers 12,575 square feet (1,168.3 m2). The main building measures 67 feet (20 m) on Fifth Avenue and 167 feet (51 m) along 36th Street. An annex, about 12 feet (3.7 m) wide with a similar facade to the original construction, is west of the main building. Nearby buildings include The Langham, New York hotel and 404 Fifth Avenue one block north; 200 Madison Avenue to the east; the B. Altman and Company Building to the southeast; and the Tiffany & Company Building to the northeast.

Before the Gorham Building was completed, the site had been occupied by the Hotel Shelburn, which by 1902 was called the Hotel Lenox. William Waldorf Astor had acquired the site in 1890. The residential core of Manhattan relocated north from lower Manhattan during the late 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, development was centered on Fifth Avenue north of 34th Street, where new department store buildings were quickly replacing the street's brownstones. One of the first new store buildings in the area was the B. Altman and Company Building, which opened in 1906. Other department stores such as Lord & Taylor, as well as specialty stores such as Tiffany & Co. and the Gorham Manufacturing Company, relocated during the 1900s and 1910s. The Gorham, Tiffany, Charles Scribner's Sons, Coty, and Demarest buildings are among the few surviving stores that were erected for smaller retailers on Fifth Avenue during the early 20th century.

## Architecture

390 Fifth Avenue is an eight-story building designed by McKim, Mead & White in an early Italian Renaissance Revival style. In his notes, Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White said he wanted both the facade and the store's interior to exhibit "a feeling of elegance and simplicity". A variety of Renaissance inspirations were used in the design. The bronze ornamentation for the facade and interior was designed by White and manufactured by Gorham.

### Facade

Along the eastern elevation on Fifth Avenue and the northern elevation on 36th Street, the facade is clad with yellowish-white Bedford limestone. These elevations are divided into three tiers, which are separated by horizontal string courses. The base comprises the first and second stories; the midsection comprises the third through sixth stories; and the loggia-like attic section comprises the seventh and eighth stories. The northeast corner is slightly rounded, similar to that of the Judge Building. The elevations to the south and west, which face other buildings, are made of brick. As built, the Gorham Building was much taller than surrounding structures.

There is an annex on 36th Street, which is the same height as the original building. The base is composed of a storefront, topped by three sets of sash windows, corresponding to the height of the base in the original building. The remaining stories are composed of six pairs of windows, one on each level. The ground-level arcade and attic loggia do not stretch around to the annex. The top of the facade contains a parapet below the original cornice.

#### Base

The entirety of the base originally had a double-height arcade running along it. The arches were supported at ground level by Ionic columns, which are made of gold-flaked Massachusetts granite. Bas-reliefs, removed by 1936, were placed in the spandrels at the top of the arcade. Andrew O'Connor sculpted the reliefs, which were made of bronze and depicted art and industry. There were three arches on the Fifth Avenue side and seven arches on the 36th Street side. There was a bronze frieze above the first floor.

Most of the easternmost arch on 36th Street, and all of the arches on Fifth Avenue, were replaced in 1960 with a storefront composed of an aluminum and glass grid. The remaining arches on 36th Street were preserved, with the main entrance to the building being located within the westernmost arch. Each of the arches at the base corresponded to two vertical window bays on the upper floors. There are six bays on the upper floors on the Fifth Avenue facade and 14 such bays on the 36th Street facade.

#### Upper stories

The middle four stories are plainer in design compared to the base. A cartouche with lions was installed above the windows on the fourth floor. On the Fifth Avenue side, there is a balcony spanning the two middle bays on the fifth floor, and on the 36th Street facade, another balcony spans the four center bays on the fifth floor. On the cornice above the sixth floor of the Fifth Avenue facade, there is a frieze, with a cartouche in the center flanked by a pair of lions. The cartouche on Fifth Avenue contains the inscription "ANNO D. MCMIIII", representing 1904, the year the building started construction. A simple frieze runs above the sixth floor of the 36th Street facade.

On the loggia-style facade of the upper two floors, each bay is separated by a Corinthian column. An entablature runs atop the loggia, wrapping along both sides. There was a 8-foot-deep (2.4 m) cornice above the eighth floor. The copper cornice was once polychrome and gilded. Over the years, the cornice has corroded to a green color.

### Interior

The interior was supported by Guastavino tile arches and contained a superstructure of steel beams. The fireproofing consisted of fire clay, masonry, and Portland cement. At the time of the building's construction, it was one of the first in New York City to be constructed of Guastavino arches. On the first floor, eight columns supported the Guastavino-tiled ceiling. The second story had higher ceilings than the other floors, as the space measured 15 feet (4.6 m) high. Architects' and Builders' Magazine described the building a having a steel frame "combined with ribs and domes [that were] self-supported and self-decorating". The stairways and elevators were also clad with bronze. Each story spanned 125,000 square feet (11,600 m2).

When the building was used as a Gorham store, each floor had a different function. Most of the basement was used by the Storage Department and housed customers' silverware, which could be kept on-site indefinitely. The first floor, used as a gold and silverware showroom, had wide and shallow arches containing ornamental reliefs. Custom designs were shown on the second floor, while bronze objects and ecclesiastical and hotel merchandise were on the third floor. Wholesale merchandise was sold on the fourth floor. The fifth story was used for administrative functions, while the top three stories contained the polishing, stationery, and engraving departments.

When women's department store Russeks moved into the building in 1924, the floors were redecorated slightly to give the appearance of individual shops. The first story sold accessories such as undergarments, perfume, and toiletries; it contained marble floors and walnut fixtures. The second story, used for selling furs, was covered in Caen stone and light-stained oak. The third story sold dresses and had stone decorations, a tan carpet, and display niches at each corner. That story also contained three Louis XVI style lounges, as well as women's dressing rooms decorated in enamel. The fourth story sold suits and cloaks and was decorated in walnut; there was a Louis XVI style room on that floor as well. The fifth story, which sold millinery and shoes, also had walnut decorations, and the floor had a blue carpet. On all five stories, there were stockrooms behind the partitions. Between 1959 and 1960, part of the ground story was converted into a lobby that was decorated in marble, bronze, and stainless steel. The upper stories became offices.

## History

In 1884, the Gorham Manufacturing Company opened its New York City showroom on 889 Broadway, at 19th Street in the Ladies' Mile Historic District. By the first decade of the 20th century, factories and lofts were opening in the area around 889 Broadway. Furthermore, stores on Ladies' Mile began to move further north into larger space. The Gorham Manufacturing Company was one of the earliest companies to consider moving uptown. As late as May 1902, Gorham denied rumors that it was planning to develop a new store near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street. Later that year, Gorham leased the Hotel Cambridge at that intersection with plans to build a store at the site.

### Gorham use

In December 1902, after acquiring the 33rd Street plot, Gorham president Edward Holbrook leased the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 36th Street. At the time, John Jacob Astor IV owned much of the site that Holbrook had leased. Holbrook hired McKim, Mead & White for the building's design, with Stanford White as the architect in charge. Holbrook requested that the Fifth Avenue building be fireproof and that its layout be able to accommodate the "needs of a great commercial enterprise". The building was designed entirely to the specifications of Gorham, its sole tenant. Fireproofing was considered especially important due to the value of Gorham's merchandise. When the store opened, one journal estimated that, while the building was worth \$1.25 million (equal to about \$ million in ), its merchandise was worth twice as much.

McKim, Mead & White filed plans in July 1903 with the New York City Department of Buildings for an eight-story building at Fifth Avenue and 36th Street. The building was planned to cost \$400,000 and would operate as a store for the Gorham Company. M. & L. Hess leased the building on the southernmost portion of the site (at 384 Fifth Avenue) from Gorham in 1904, and Gorham ultimately sold that building in 1920. Because Gorham was developing its store on 36th Street, it leased the 33rd Street site to other merchants, including jewelry store Shreve & Co.

390 Fifth Avenue opened on September 5, 1905, the same day as the nearby Tiffany and Company Building. The building ultimately cost \$1.25 million, of which bronze ornamentation accounted for ten percent. Gorham closed its Broadway store in 1906. In the 1910s, the Gorham Art Galleries operated in the Gorham Building. Among the gallery's exhibitions were works from the American League of Young Sculptors; a spring collection of American sculpture; a set of animal sculptures; and a stained-glass window that Gorham made for a church in Baltimore.

### Russeks use

In early October 1923, Gorham announced it would move uptown and sell both the building and its land lease. Three weeks later, the Martiz Realty Company bought the building on behalf of women's department store Russeks. The lease was finalized the next month, when Russeks also leased the adjacent 384 Fifth Avenue. Prior to moving into the property, Russeks added reinforced concrete floors and a new shop window. In addition, a four-story section of the building on 36th Street was enlarged to eight stories. Russeks moved into 390 Fifth Avenue in September 1924 and expanded into 384 Fifth Avenue in January 1926. Meanwhile, department store Stewart & Co. (which already had a store at 404 Fifth Avenue) filed a lawsuit against Russeks and a bank involved in the transaction, claiming that the lease had violated Stewart & Co.'s rights to the site. A judge upheld Russeks's lease in December 1924, and the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, dismissed the suit in 1927.

P. W. Chapman & Co. placed a \$1.5 million first mortgage loan on the building in January 1928. George H. Burr & Co. then distributed about 50,000 shares of common stock in Russeks Fifth Avenue, a subsidiary of Russeks that owned the building. Structural engineer David M. Oltarsh added a five-story annex to a two-story section of the Russeks building. The additional floors were suspended from the building's roof because it would have been prohibitively expensive to rebuild the foundation to support the extra weight. Russeks opened its Southern Resort Shops division within the third floor in 1930. Russeks announced in 1936 that 384 Fifth Avenue would be remodeled to complement the design of 390 Fifth Avenue, giving the store a frontage of 96 or 97 feet (29 or 30 m) on Fifth Avenue. The buildings were linked internally and the facade of number 384 was rebuilt with a limestone base and ground-floor display windows. At this time, the store was expanded at its southwestern corner, within the interior of the block. The next year, the Empire Trust Company acquired 390 and 384 Fifth Avenue at a foreclosure auction.

The City Bank-Farmers Trust Company, acting as trustee for the Astor family, sold the site of 390 Fifth Avenue (but not that of 384 Fifth Avenue) in July 1949 to a syndicate represented by Frederick Fox & Co. The two lots at 384 and 390 Fifth Avenue were worth a combined \$2.1 million, while the building was worth \$750,000. The syndicate was identified as Spear Securities. The syndicate finalized its acquisition that August, and the Prudential Life Insurance Company placed a \$1.2 million mortgage on the site. By the late 1950s, Russeks was reporting year-over-year losses. James Kassner took over the store around 1957 and remodeled it twice, but the small selling floors remained unprofitable and the high ceilings increased the cost of air conditioning and heating. In February 1959, after five years of losses, the company announced the closure of its Fifth Avenue store. A writer for Women's Wear Daily attributed the decline of the Russeks store to its heavy focus on luxury fashion, even though most such stores had long since moved further up Fifth Avenue. The store closed on May 2, 1959.

### Office use

#### Renovation and initial tenants

After the Russeks store closed, the building was sold to Spear Securities. Robert H. Arrow, who represented the owners, first attempted to find another discount store that was willing to occupy the Gorham Building. Spear announced plans in October 1959 to renovate the building, hirring Herbert Tannenbaum as the architect in charge and the MacArthur Construction Corp. as the general contractor. The renovation was completed the next year at a cost of \$1 million. The building's colonnade and carved-marble sheets were removed as part of the renovation, and a glass facade was installed along the lower stories. Tannenbaum later said he had wanted to save the carved marble and the colonnade. The contractors built a new marble lobby, replaced three elevators, and added a freight entrance with its own elevator. 384 Fifth Avenue again became its own building and was leased by the Tandy Corporation. The Gorham Building was one of more than 25 buildings on Fifth Avenue between 34th and 50th Street that had been significantly altered since World War II, even as only eight new buildings had been erected in that area during the same time. Williams Real Estate, which was hired to rent out 390 Fifth Avenue's office space, recommended customizing each story's design to a specific tenant. Williams opened a rental office at the building in November 1959, while renovation was underway. Early the next year, Coquette's shoe store took over the former storefront. The office space was leased by several manufacturers of men's and boys' clothing, including shirt company F. Jacobson & Sons, which was the building's largest tenant and occupied two and a half floors. In 1961, a year after the renovation was completed, the building had 40 office tenants that occupied 90 percent of the space. The storefront was being used by a store named Dennison's Party Bazaar by 1962.

#### Later years

In January 1970, United States Realty Investments sold the building and the lease to Jacques Schwalbe. The building and its lease were given to 390 Fifth LLC, a limited liability company affiliated with the Schwalbe family, in 1996. Around the same time, changes were made to the storefront facade. The Dennison's Party Bazaar store subsequently became Party Bazaar and lasted through the 1990s. Menswear companies continued to occupy the building through that decade. In December 1998, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the building as an official city landmark.

By 2000, the owner had hired architect Andrew Tedesco and decorator Eric Cohler to restore White's original facade in paint. The owner proposed painting 80 sheets of signboard, each measuring 4 by 8 feet (1.2 by 2.4 m); the signboards would then be affixed to the exterior. The plan would have cost \$7 million. The LPC opposed the proposal, and the Schwalbes withdrew the plan before the LPC could vote on it. The Schwalbes then hired architect Arthur Kahane to draw up plans for a full restoration of the building in the 2010s.

## Reception

In its early years, 390 Fifth Avenue was lauded for its design. Augustin-Adolphe Rey, a French architectural critic, referred to 390 Fifth Avenue as "the most beautiful business building in the world" in 1904. Three years later, Architectural Record dubbed the building "a surprise and a joy", and that "compared to the Gorham Building, the Tiffany Building is by way of being frivolous". A critic in 1912 said that following the construction of the Tiffany & Co, Gorham, and Knickerbocker Trust Company buildings, "the standard of excellence in commercial architecture was raised to a height previously unknown."

Some of the building's praise concerned Stanford White's role in its design. in 1908, a critic for New York Architect said that 390 Fifth Avenue was among McKim, Mead & White's "best designs [...] for a commercial edifice, both from a monumental and practical point of view". Another writer referred to the building as White's "best piece of work" as well as "perhaps the [United States'] most beautiful store building".

## See also

- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 14th to 59th Streets

Historic building in Manhattan, New York

Italian Renaissance Revival architecture in the United States


First Battle of Naktong Bulge

The First Battle of Naktong Bulge was an engagement between United Nations Command (UN) and North Korean forces early in the Korean War from August 5–19, 1950 in the vicinity of Yongsan (Yeongsan, Changnyeong county) and the Naktong River in South Korea. It was a part of the Battle of Pusan Perimeter, and was one of several large engagements fought simultaneously. The battle ended in a victory for the UN after large numbers of US reinforcements destroyed an attacking North Korean division.

On August 5, the Korean People's Army (KPA), 4th Infantry Division crossed the Naktong River in the vicinity of Yongsan, attempting to cut UN supply lines to the north as well as gaining a bridgehead into the Pusan Perimeter. Opposing it was the 24th Infantry Division of the Eighth United States Army. Over the next two weeks, US and KPA forces fought a bloody series of engagements inflicting heavy casualties on one another in a confusing series of attacks and counterattacks, but neither side was able to gain the upper hand. In the end, the US forces, aided by reinforcements, air support and heavy weapons, destroyed the KPA force which was hampered by lack of supply and high desertion rates.

The battle was a turning point in the war for the KPA, which had seen previous victories owing to superior numbers and equipment. UN forces now had a numerical superiority and more equipment, including M4 Sherman tanks and heavy weapons capable of defeating the KPA T-34 tanks.

## Background

### Outbreak of war

Following the 25 June 1950 outbreak of the Korean War after the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, the United Nations decided to commit troops to the conflict on behalf of South Korea. The United States subsequently committed ground forces to the Korean Peninsula with the goal of fighting back the North Korean invasion and to prevent South Korea from collapsing. However, US forces in the Far East had been steadily decreasing since the end of World War II, five years earlier, and at the time the closest forces were the 24th Infantry Division, headquartered in Japan. The division was understrength, and most of its equipment was antiquated due to reductions in military spending. Regardless, the 24th was ordered to South Korea.

The 24th Infantry Division was the first US unit sent into Korea with the mission to take the initial "shock" of KPA advances, delaying much larger KPA units to buy time to allow reinforcements to arrive. The division was consequently alone for several weeks as it attempted to delay the KPA, making time for the 1st Cavalry and the 7th and 25th Infantry Divisions, along with other Eighth Army supporting units, to move into position. Advance elements of the 24th Division were badly defeated in the Battle of Osan on July 5, the first encounter between US and KPA forces. For the first month after the defeat of Task Force Smith, 24th Division was repeatedly defeated and forced south by superior KPA numbers and equipment. The regiments of the 24th Division were systematically pushed south in engagements around Chochiwon, Chonan, and Pyongtaek. The 24th made a final stand in the Battle of Taejon, where it was almost completely destroyed but delaying KPA forces until July 20. By that time, the Eighth Army's force of combat troops were roughly equal to KPA forces attacking the region, with new UN units arriving every day.

### North Korean advance

With Taejon captured, KPA forces began surrounding the Pusan Perimeter from all sides in an attempt to envelop it. The KPA 4th and 6th Divisions advanced south in a wide flanking maneuver. The two divisions attempted to envelop the UN's left flank, but became extremely spread out in the process. They advanced on UN positions with armor and superior numbers, repeatedly pushing back UN forces.

UN forces were pushed back repeatedly before finally halting the KPA advance in a series of engagements in the southern section of the country. Forces of the 3rd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, newly arrived in the country, were wiped out at Hadong in a coordinated ambush by KPA forces on July 27, opening a pass to the Pusan area. Soon after, KPA forces took Chinju to the west, pushing back the US 19th Infantry Regiment and leaving routes to the Pusan open for more KPA attacks. US formations were subsequently able to defeat and push back the KPA on the flank in the Battle of the Notch on August 2. Suffering mounting losses, the KPA force in the west withdrew for several days to re-equip and receive reinforcements. This granted both sides a reprieve to prepare for the attack on the Pusan Perimeter.

### Naktong Bulge

About 7 miles (11 km) north of the point where it turns east and is joined by the Nam River, the Naktong River curves westward opposite Yongsan in a wide semicircular loop. For most of this span, the Naktong is around 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep, allowing infantry to wade across with some difficulty but preventing vehicles from crossing without assistance. This perimeter was defended by a network of observation posts on the high ground, manned by 24th Infantry. Forces in reserve would counterattack any attempted crossings by KPA. Artillery and mortar fire units were also deployed so large amounts of fire could be delivered on any one spot. The division was extremely dispersed, already understrength, it presented a very thin line.

## Battle

The 24th US Infantry Division, under the command of Major General John H. Church, occupied a region some 16 miles (26 km) long along the Naktong River. The 34th Infantry Regiment occupied the southern half, west of Yongsan while the 21st Infantry Regiment occupied the northern half, west of Changyong. The 19th Infantry Regiment, meanwhile, was re-equipping in the rear of the lines. In all, the 24th and its supporting units had a strength of 14,540 on August 5.

Opposing the 24th Infantry was the KPA 4th Division, under the command of Major General Lee Kwon Mu. Both Mu and his division were highly decorated for their exploits so far in the war, particularly during the First Battle of Seoul. By August 4 the 4th Division had concentrated all of its regiments in the vicinity of Hyopch'on. It stood at a strength of about 7,000 with 1,500 in each infantry regiment.

### North Korean attack

At midnight on the night of August 5–6, 800 KPA soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 16th Regiment waded across the river at the Ohang ferry site, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) south of Pugong-ni and west of Yongsan, carrying light weapons and supplies over their heads or on rafts. A second force attempted to cross further north but was hit with machine gun and artillery fire, falling back in confusion. At 02:00 on August 6, the KPA began engaging the forces of 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry and moved forward after a small fight, attempting to penetrate the lines to Yongsan. KPA infantry forced 3rd Battalion back, and they abandoned their command post to consolidate their position. The attack caught the Americans by surprise as US commanders expected the KPA to attempt a crossing further north. The landing threatened to split the US lines and disrupt supply lines to positions further north. Subsequently, the KPA were able to capture a large amount of US equipment.

### US counterattack

The 34th Infantry's regimental headquarters ordered the 1st Battalion to counterattack the KPA. When 1st Battalion arrived at 3rd Battalion's former command post, it was ambushed by KPA troops on the high ground. C Company, the first to arrive, suffered over fifty percent casualties. A and B Companies counterattacked with tanks and armor, eventually rescuing the beleaguered C Company. At around 20:00, A Company made contact with L Company, 3rd Battalion, still in its positions on the river, radioing that the KPA had penetrated eastward north of the Yongsan-Naktong River road to Cloverleaf Hill, but had not yet crossed south of the road to Obong-ni Ridge. The KPA had penetrated 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the Naktong and halfway to Yongsan.

Several units of the 34th Regiment began to retreat north and into the 21st Infantry's lines, but Church ordered them turned around. He also ordered the 19th Infantry to counterattack west along the northern flank of the 34th Infantry to help oppose the KPA. Although the 24th Infantry was repulsed closer to the river, 1 mile (1.6 km) inland the 19th Infantry trapped about 300 KPA in a village and killed most of them.

The 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, had managed to block the KPA advance to Yongsan while the 19th Infantry was able to push it back and inflict substantial casualties. However, by the evening of August 6, the KPA held firmly on to their bridgehead. Attempted crossings that night were repulsed to the south by Republic of Korea Army (ROK) forces, but an unknown number of reinforcements were moved across the river the night of August 6–7. On August 7–8, the KPA tried to move two more battalions across the river to the north, but were repulsed by 21st Infantry, which was still in place. The KPA battalions were shifted south to cross at the bridgehead, instead. By August 8, an estimated KPA regiment were across the Naktong.

### Counterattacks

American counterattacks continued into the morning of August 7, but the gains were slow, hampered by the hot weather and a lack of food and water. The KPA were able to press forward and regain the Cloverleaf Hill and Oblong-ni Ridge, critical terrain astride the main road in the bulge area. By 16:00 that day, the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, a unit newly arrived in Korea, was sent to the region. Church immediately ordered it to attack the KPA salient at the bulge. 9th Infantry was fresh and well-equipped. They were also inexperienced, many of their number being reservists. Despite a tenacious attack, the 9th Infantry was only able to regain part of Cloverleaf Hill before intense fighting stalled its movement.

KPA forces began making gains in the hills along the river adjacent to their bridgehead, against positions of the 34th Infantry. Coordinated attacks pushed A Company to the north back from their hills with heavy casualties on August 7. K Company to the south was also attacked but held its line, reinforced by L Company on August 10. Fighting continued for several days, resulting in heavy casualties as both sides captured and recaptured the hills along the Naktong, neither side able to gain a decisive advantage against the other.

### Task Force Hill

In an attempt to destroy the KPA bridgehead, Church assembled a large force under the 9th Infantry Regiment. Dubbed Task Force Hill, this force comprised the 9th, 19th and 34th Infantry Regiments as well as 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, plus supporting artillery and other attached units. It was assigned to drive the KPA from the east bank of the river on August 11. Commanding the task force was Colonel John G. Hill, the Commanding Officer of the 9th Infantry Regiment.

The KPA 4th Division, meanwhile, had constructed underwater bridges of sandbags, logs, and rocks, finishing the first on August 10. 4th Division used it to move trucks and heavy artillery as well as additional infantry and a few tanks across the river. By the morning of August 10, an estimated two KPA regiments were across the river and occupying fortified positions. Supplies continued to stream in through rafts. Task Force Hill mounted its attack, but was once again unable to make progress due to the newly established artillery. Its directive to attack quickly became one to dig in and hold its ground, and by nightfall the entire KPA 4th Division was across the river. On August 10, elements of the KPA 4th Division began to move south, outflanking Task Force Hill. The next day, scattered KPA elements attacked Yongsan. The KPA repeatedly attacked at night, when American soldiers were resting and had greater difficulty resisting.

### Reinforcements

On August 12, General Walton Walker, in command of the Eighth Army, dispatched part of the 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, to attack north from the 25th Division's zone to drive off KPA 4th Division troops moving into Yongsan. Simultaneously, Church assembled all the combat service support soldiers he could and formed them into a combat unit to block further penetration of KPA forces, which were setting up roadblocks on the roads from Yongsan.

Additional reinforcements poured in. The rest of the 27th Infantry moved in, as well as a battalion from the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. These were able to push KPA infiltrators out of Yongsan and back to their firmly held positions at Cloverleaf Hill. On August 14, following an artillery barrage, Task Force Hill launched a direct assault on these positions. Fighting continued the entire day in a fierce series of attacks and counterattacks in which both sides, already at far reduced strength, inflicted large numbers of casualties. However, Task Force Hill'''s second attack was just as unsuccessful as its first. Casualties among officers was high in the fight, and the disorganization that followed meant most of the units in the fight could not communicate to coordinate any large actions. It became a battle of attrition by August 15 as neither the KPA 4th Division nor Task Force Hill were able to get the upper hand in the fight, which in several cases erupted in desperate hand-to-hand combat. Casualties mounted and a frustrated Walker ordered the 5,000-man 1st Provisional Marine Brigade to the area to turn the tide. The brigade moved from the Masan region in the middle of a counteroffensive being conducted by the 25th US Infantry.

The KPA 4th Division in the meantime was suffering serious logistical setbacks from lack of food, equipment, ammunition and, weapons. Conscripts from local South Korean villages were brought in to replace mounting losses. There was also virtually no provision for the wounded in the division, and the KPA forces began to come apart under these stresses. Still, the division's morale remained relatively high and General Lee refused to withdraw.

### Destruction of the bridgehead

The 1st Marine Provisional Brigade, in conjunction with Task Force Hill, mounted a massive attack on Cloverleaf Hill and Obong-ni on August 17. The offensive began at 08:00 on August 17, with US forces unleashing all heavy weapons available to them against the KPA positions; artillery, mortars, M26 Pershing tanks and airstrikes.

At first, tenacious KPA defense halted the Marines who responded with artillery, raking Cloverleaf Hill. Heavy indirect fire forced the KPA out of their positions before the Marines and Task Force Hill'' eventually overwhelmed them, one hill at a time. The Marines approached Obong-ni first, destroying resistance on the slope with an airstrike and a barrage from US tanks, but strong resistance caused heavy casualties, and they had to withdraw. The KPA 18th Regiment, in control of the hill, mounted a disastrous counterattack in hopes of pushing the Marines back. The division's tactics of cutting off supplies and relying on surprise, which had provided them so much success up to this point, failed in the face of massive US numerical superiority.

By nightfall on August 18, KPA 4th Division had been annihilated; huge numbers of deserters had weakened its numbers during the fight, but by that time, Obong-ni and Cloverleaf Hill had been retaken by the US forces. Scattered groups of KPA soldiers fled back across the Naktong, pursued by American planes and artillery fire. The next day, the remains of 4th Division had withdrawn across the river. In their hasty retreat, they left a large number of artillery pieces and equipment behind which the Americans later pressed into service.

## Aftermath

The battle caused massive casualties for both sides. By the end of the fight, KPA 4th Division had been completely destroyed, with only 300 or 400 men in each of its regiments. Of its original 7,000 men, the division now had a strength of only 3,500, having suffered over 1,200 killed. Several thousand of the members of the division deserted during the fight. Most of these men were South Korean civilians forcibly conscripted into the KPA. 4th Division would not recover until much later in the war. The battle represented a new phase in the war for the KPA. Their numerical superiority was gone, and their strategy of attacking supply lines and rear formations of US units was no longer effective without overwhelming numbers. Additionally, the advantage the T-34 tank had once provided was also gone; American units were now well equipped with effective anti-tank weapons, as well as larger numbers of tanks of their own. Subsequently, all 4th Division's T-34s were quickly knocked out before they could inflict much damage.

The 9th Infantry and supporting units sustained 57 killed, 106 wounded, two captured, and 13 missing, a total of 180 casualties. The 21st Infantry suffered around 30 killed and 70 wounded, the 19th Infantry around 450 casualties, and the 34th Infantry around 400. The 27th Infantry reported around 150. The 1st Provisional Brigade reported 66 Marines dead, 278 wounded, and one missing. In total, American forces suffered around 1,800 casualties during the conflict, including about a third them killed.

In memory of the battle at Naktong Bulge, as well as other conflicts along the Pusan Perimeter and the Battle of Taegu, the South Korean government set up the Nakdong River Battle Museum along the river in the vicinity of the conflict in 1979, which includes a number of artifacts from the Korean War as well as a memorial to those killed during the war.

## See also

- Hill 303 massacre

Battle of the Korean War during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter

Battles and operations of the Korean War in 1950

Battles of the Korean War involving North Korea

Battles of the Korean War involving the United States