Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India]: Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Thursday criticized remarks calling Tamil Nadu residents “uncivilized,” stating that the people of the state would deliver a fitting response.
Udhayanidhi said, “The Union government insults Tamil Nadu and Periyar. Are we uncivilized? Those who call us uncivilized are, in fact, behaving in an uncivilized manner and making remarks against us. Tamil people will give a befitting reply very soon.”
His remarks follow comments made by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament.
Sitharaman had accused Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK of worshipping someone who once described Tamil as a “barbaric” language, though she did not explicitly mention E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar), the prominent Dravidian movement leader.
Reacting to the controversy, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) president Vijay questioned Sitharaman’s concerns, suggesting that if she was truly upset about Periyar’s past comments, she should advocate for implementing the three-language policy in Tamil Nadu.
The ongoing political tension is linked to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which Tamil Nadu’s state ministers have strongly opposed.
State Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan criticized the NEP, calling it impractical due to insufficient funding and infrastructure. Comparing it to teaching both “an LKG student” and “a higher education student” in the same way, Thiagarajan claimed that earlier language policy efforts had failed in Hindi-speaking states due to a shortage of qualified teachers.
BJP Tamil Nadu President K Annamalai criticized Thiagarajan’s remarks, pointing out that the minister’s own sons had studied English and a foreign language. Annamalai defended the NEP, stating that the three-language policy would allow government school students to learn a third Indian language or a foreign language in addition to Tamil and English.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin condemned the NEP as a “saffronized policy” designed to promote Hindi rather than improve India’s education system. He warned that the policy could harm Tamil Nadu’s educational structure.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan rejected allegations of Hindi imposition, stating that the NEP promotes multilingualism and allows states to choose their own language preferences.
Pradhan also claimed that the DMK government was using the language issue to distract from governance concerns, sharing a letter from Tamil Nadu’s School Education Department supporting the policy to counter their claims.