Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin on July 7 announced that the State-run hostels for underprivileged school and college students will be called as 'social justice hostels' hereon.
He informed that under DMK rule, which is principled on social justice and inclusion, there would be 'no' kind of discrimination, be it gender or caste. He also asserted that all governments' programmes were aligned towards this goal.
CM Stalin recalled that on April 29 this year, he had announced in the Assembly that the term ‘Colony’ would be removed from official records and public parlance as it symbolised 'oppression' and pointed at the 'connotation of untouchability'.
Notably, he reiterated his request to PM Modi to amend the SC/ST community names that ends with 'n' and 'a' with 'r' in a measure to ensure their dignity.
He also recalled the GO issued on June 25, on behalf of the School Education Department that stipulates measures to deter caste and communal conflict, weed out differences among school students and encourage harmony and virtues among them.
The State government had constituted a commission under retired Justice K Chandru to study how caste-based violence could be prevented in schools, following the Nanguneri incident in August 2023, in which a class 12 Dalit student and his sister were brutally hacked by their schoolmates belonging to OBC category.
The exhaustive 600-page report that Justice Chandru submitted thereafter, had highlighted that Tamil Nadu’s education system is 'infested' with deep-rooted caste discrimination, challenging the State’s social justice credentials.
The commission had also made various key recommendations, including the removal of caste prefixes and suffixes in school names, which the government accepted to.
As of now, there are 2,739 government hostels across Tamil Nadu, accommodating 1,79,568 students. They are being run by Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department, besides Backward Classes and Minority Welfare Department.