CHENNAI: Even as the opposition parties in Tamil Nadu are up in arms against the three-language policy stressed in the New Education Policy 2020, the AIADMK government led by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami also took exception to the Centre's latest move. He asserted that Tamil Nadu would never ever allow the three-language policy.
"The Centre should accept the overall view of the people of Tamil Nadu in this regard and reconsider its stand on the three-language policy. I appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow the states to implement their own language policy according to their views,” the Chief Minister said in a statement after an hour-long meeting with senior ministers and officials on the NEP. However, the statement did not say anything about the key objections being raised by the opposition parties regarding the NEP.
“The people of Tamil Nadu and most political parties including the AIADMK wish that the two-language policy should be in force in the state. As such, it is saddening to note that the NEP has stressed on a three-language policy,” Palaniswami said.
When the draft New Education Policy was released, the AIADMK government opposed it strongly, the Chief Minister said and recalled that he had written a letter to the Prime Minister on June 26, 2019. Besides, he also reiterated this in his Independence Day address last year, and on various occasions during the debates in the state Assembly, he had reiterated his stance on the two-language policy.
Stating that for the past 80 years, the people of Tamil Nadu had been firm on the two-language policy, Palaniswami said, "On many occasions, the people of the state have made their mind clear through agitations."
Recalling the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation, the Chief Minister noted that a historic resolution was moved by former Chief Minister CN Annadurai on January 23, 1968, in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The resolution proposed to abolish the three-language policy in all schools in Tamil Nadu while removing Hindi from the state syllabus and allowing Tamil and English.
Palaniswami also recalled that the AIADMK government had been consistently following the two-language policy proposed by Anna for the past many years. On November 13, 1986, a resolution asserting the two-language policy moved by former Chief Minister MG Ramachandran was adopted by the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
Palaniswami also recalled that former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa too was firm in opposing the imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi speaking states and thwarting such efforts. She also reiterated that Tamil should be declared as an official language of the country. The Chief Minister also reiterated that the AIADMK had always been in the forefront to set right the problems faced by the Tamil language or Tamils.