CHENNAI: Governor RN Ravi on Wednesday said poet Subramania Bharathi over a century ago, stood for imparting education through mother tongue when the Britishers was boasting about English medium. The governor said this while speaking at a function in Raj Bhavan to celebrate the birth anniversary of the poet.
Speaking on the occasion, the governor said, “Bharathi always believed that the most powerful and best medium of learning could be through one’s mother tongue. When the Britishers were trying to kill our languages, and when they were blatantly propagating that English was the only language capable of refined expressions, Bharathi challenged that notion and campaigned for the mother tongue.”
The governor recalled that in October 1916, JC Rollo Eso, the then principal of Panchaiyappa’s College, strongly advocated that English should be the only language of education because other Indian languages including Tamil were not fully competent.
The governor said the Britishers did not even call our languages as languages but as vernacular which means the language of the slaves. Immediately, poet Bharathi contested this wrong notion.
The governor also flagged off Jathi Pallakku in memory of Bharathi and lifted the palanquin on his shoulder for a procession towards Sri Parthasarathy temple in Triplicane.
Meanwhile, CM MK Stalin, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami and leaders of various political parties recalled the glories of poet Subramania Bharathi and paid rich tributes to the poet on his birth anniversary.