CHENNAI: Protesting the increasing imposition of Hindi and seeking continued excavation and research at Keezhadi in Sivaganga, believed to be a Sangam-era site, the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association (TNPWAA) and Students Federation of India held a Tamil rights conference here on Monday.
“Mother tongue is an essential part of the psychological make-up of our people. There is a larger conspiracy to distort the evolution of our country as we know it,” said CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, referring to President Pranab Mukherjee accepting the recommendations of the Parliamentary committee on official languages, which called upon all dignitaries who read and write the language to deliver all speeches only in Hindi.
DMK veteran Durai Murugan, whose politics was shaped by protests against Hindi imposition that DMK led decades ago, said the event’s turnout reminded him of his own struggle against Hindi imposition as a college student.
The TNPWAA pressed for 10 demands that included the facilitation of the excavation and research in Keezhadi from where the samples collected are said to be the first evidence of a river-based civilisation in South India. The Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench recently directed the Archaeological Survey of India to set up a site museum there.
“When I visited the site, I was told that a pot that was just excavated, almost 2,000 years old, was broken within five minutes when the researchers took a lunch break. Such is the condition of the excavation site,” said Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi.
Kanimozhi and CPM leader TK Rangarajan questioned the motives behind the transfer of superintending archaeologist K Amarnath Ramakrishna, who oversaw two phases of the project, when it is usual for an official to be granted extension until the project’s completion.
Akademi award-winning writer S Venkatesan, general secretary of TNPWAA, said that about 64,000 of the 1,00,000 stone artefacts that were excavated were associated with Tamil, but the funding for excavations in the State was grossly insufficient.
VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan, CPM State secretary G Ramakrishnan, veteran leaders N Sankaraiah (CPM) and D Pandian (CPI) also spoke.