TN CM M K Stalin (left); Governor R N Ravi.
Credit: PTI Photos
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and Governor R N Ravi were involved in a slanging match on Friday after the word ‘Dravida’ was omitted from the State Anthem sung at the Hindi Month celebrations by Doordarshan Chennai presided over by the latter.
Ravi’s participation in the event triggered sharp reactions from the entire political class in Tamil Nadu barring the BJP with the ruling DMK’s student wing organising a protest outside the Chennai TV station.
But the row took a different proposition after the singers skipped the sentence thekkanamum athirsirantha Dravida nalthirunaadum (loosely translated as the great country in the Dravidian land) while singing the song penned by Manonmaniam Sundaranar Pillai leading to consternation among the participants, even as the Governor remained unmoved.
As TV channels flashed that reference to Dravidam was omitted from the song, an agitated Stalin took to X platform to know whether Ravi was the governor of Tamil Nadu or was he the ambassador of Aryans.
“Singing Tamil Thaai Vaazhthu by omitting Dravidam is going against the law in Tamil Nadu. A person who acts according to his whims and fancies and not by law is not fit to hold such a position. In the name of celebrating Hindi, the Governor is insulting people from different ethnicities and the country’s unity,” Stalin said in a hard-hitting statement.
“Will the Governor, who is allergic to the word Dravidam, sing the National Anthem too by skipping the word Dravidam? We demand the immediate recall of Governor R N Ravi for deliberately insulting the people of Tamil Nadu and their sentiments,” the Chief Minister added.
An hour later, the Governor termed as “cheap”, “racist” and “incorrect imputations against him” the Chief Minister’s remarks. “…(it) lowers the dignity of the high constitutional office of the chief minister,” the Governor said in a statement.
The Chief Minister penned a long response to the Governor’s rebuttal by seeking to know why Ravi didn’t object to the omission of the sentence and condemned the act if his statement that he recites the song with utmost conviction was indeed true. Recalling the Governor refusing to read the work Dravidam in his address to the Assembly in 2023 and almost suggesting changing the name of Tamil Nadu to Tamizhagam, Stalin asked the governor when “your past history is such, how will people believe that the omission was inadvertent.”
The incident triggered a massive controversy with almost every political party coming out in open against Governor Ravi for “insulting Tamil language and the people of Tamil Nadu.” Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami, BJP ally PMK founder S Ramadoss, Tamil Nadu Congress chief K Selvaperunthagai, and other leaders termed the omission of the sentence as “unacceptable.”
Issuing an apology, Doordarshan Chennai said the sentence was missed “inadvertently” due to a distraction and that there was no intention from the singers to disrespect Tamil or the anthem, while Raj Bhavan washed its hands off saying the Governor was merely a participant in the event and had no role in the fiasco.
Just hours before Ravi attended the event at Chennai TV station, Stalin dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against celebrating Hindi Month in non-Hindi states and calling the move as an “attempt to belittle other languages.”
Ravi, who faced protests from the DMK students’ wing outside the Chennai TV station, launched a ballistic attack against the DMK and its “language politics” in Tamil Nadu by alleging that an attempt has been made for the past 50 years to “isolate the state” from the rest of India.
“Such attempts will never succeed. Tamil Nadu will remain an integral part of India,” the governor added in his speech at the DD event, while deriding the two-language policy. “Systematic isolation has been going on in Tamil Nadu and linguistic isolation is cultural ghettoisation. This is what has been happening in the state for the past 50 years,” Ravi added.
The governor’s office also said that the troupe which sang the State Anthem “inadvertently” missed a line which consisted of the word Dravida.
“The matter was immediately brought to the notice of organizers and appropriate authorities are asked to look into the matter. The Governor or his office has no role in this except that he participated in the programme,” the Raj Bhavan said in a statement.
Friday witnessed much more drama with DMK students holding a demonstration outside the Chennai TV Station in Chepauk before the Governor’s arrival. The protesters shouted slogans against “imposition of Hindi” and demanded that the Governor skip the event which promotes only one language in a multilingual country.
Political parties in the state also condemned Hindi Month celebrations by DD Tamil and accused the BJP-led Union Government of trying to impose Hindi through the “back-door”. They also accused the BJP of renaming DD Podhigai as DD Tamil earlier this year and changing the logo colour to saffron.
In his letter to Modi, Stalin reminded him that the Constitution of India does not accord national language status to any language and recalled that Hindi and English are used only for official purposes.
“In such circumstances, in a multilingual country like India, according special place to Hindi and celebrating Hindi Month in non-Hindi speaking States is seen as an attempt to belittle other languages,” Stalin added.
He also suggested that holding such Hindi language oriented events in non-Hindi speaking states should be avoided but if the Union Government still desires to hold such events, he wanted celebration of the local language month in respective states with equal warmth.
“I also suggest that the Government of India can hold special events to celebrate the richness of all the Classical languages that it has recognized in the respective States. This could enhance the cordial relationship among all,” the Chief Minister said.
This is not the first time that the Governor has stoked controversy with regard to language, a subject dear to Tamils. In January 2023, while delivering his address to the state Assembly, he skipped the word ‘Dravidam’ and almost suggested a name change for the state to Tamizhagam from Tamil Nadu, leading to wide-spread criticism.
Ravi uses Dravidianism as a punching bag by not missing any opportunity to take potshots at the Dravidian movement, almost billing it as one that advocates separatism and opposes Hindi. In Friday’s speech too, the Governor said he could see the growing enthusiasm among people of Tamil Nadu to learn Hindi and that there is greater acceptance for the language.
“After the British left, we were so colonised that we remained a slave of English. It didn’t allow the growth of Bharatiya languages. There is no question of one being superior to the other. Tamil is one of the oldest languages and we are proud of it. There has been a consistent effort to isolate Tamil Nadu from the rest of the country,” Ravi said.
He also utilised the occasion to take potshots at the Tamil media alleging that most of them are “compromised” and claimed that the standard of education has gone down in Tamil Nadu in the past few years.
In his clarification, the Governor said the Chief Minister knows it well that he recites Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu at every function and does so with reverence, pride and precision.
“As a proud Indian I myself have taken numerous substantive initiatives to spread Tamil, the oldest and richest living language, in other states of the country, the latest being to set up , with cooperation of the Assam govt, a Tamil diploma course in Gauhati University for spread of Tamil in the North East,” he said.