CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday released the book Thamizhar Nithi Nirvagam: Thonmaiyum Thodarchiyum (Financial Management of the Tamils: Antiquity and Continuity), and the first copy was received by Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu.
The book gives a comprehensive account of Tamils' financial administration from the Sangam era to the present. It sheds light on ancient trade, taxation systems, fiscal principles during the British Raj, and Tamil Nadu’s budgets presented after Independence.
The book can be downloaded using the link: https://www.tamildigitallibrary.in/budget (This exclusive link has many books on economics, 130-year-old budget documents and copies of budgets since 1920s). The CM also launched this special online page.
Professor P Shanmugam (retired), in his article reproduced in the book, recalls during the Pallavas rule, tax was levied on paddy, and other foodgrains, fruits, arecanuts, certain medicinal herbs, fishing, salt production, weaving, etc.
Besides, the users of water resources also had to pay tax. Moreover, road tax was also in vogue. Shanmugam said from the Sangam Age to the period of Pallavars and early Pandiyas, the revenue for the government was well planned. He said though there was no evidence to show annual planning, the then governments indeed had a plan for increasing their revenue.
The book reproduced select portions of the speech of economist P Natarajan, delivered in the University of Madras in 1960 on the financial principles articulated in Tirukkural. Natarajan also compared Chanakya’s Artha Sasthra with Tirukkural and remarked that while Chanakya advocated collecting tax even by threatening the public and Thiruvalluvar said people should pay tax wholeheartedly.
The book included select portions from the work of Tamil scholar Mayilai Seeni Venkatasami on the trade practices of Tamils during the Sangam Age. It referred to a document kept in the Vienna Museum (written in Greek) about how Tamils were engaged in intense trade during the second century. Besides, the documents give details of the excise duty paid.
The book also refers to an inscription found in Jambai near Thirukkoyilur which recorded the penalty imposed for forcible collection of tax. There is also a reference to an officer who paid a penalty on charges of abetting a woman to kill herself by forcing her to pay tax.
It is interesting to note Viduthalai (Tamil daily), commenting on the first budget submitted by the state in February 1948, that the budget had revenue deficit and was “unexciting”. In 1959, the then finance minister for the state C Subramaniam presented a Rs 1.4 crore surplus budget with no new taxes.
The article of ex-vice chairman of State Planning Commission professor M Naganathan on how taxation developed during the British Rule and after Independence provided insights into history of fiscal management.