Tamil Sangamam’s 4th edition focuses on ‘learning Tamil’ amid three-language row

The theme of the event this time is “Tamil Karkalam” or “let us learn Tamil”, according to Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi.

“The effort will be for as many people as possible to learn Tamil as part of the event. Around 50 teachers from Tamil Nadu who also know Hindi will come to Kashi and teach Tamil to students. Around 1,500 students will learn Tamil like this,” Joshi said on Saturday. As part of this, foundational spoken Tamil classes will be conducted across 50 schools in Varanasi from December 2 to 15, with each teacher teaching 30 students.

Similarly, around 300 college students from Varanasi and surrounding areas will travel to Tamil Nadu to learn Tamil in the second half of December. They will learn the language at nine institutions in the state, including IIT Madras, Pondicherry University and Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan.

As part of the event, around 1,500 participants from Tamil Nadu, including students, teachers, and entrepreneurs, will visit Varanasi, Prayagraj and Ayodhya. A set of discussions is also being organised at Banaras Hindu University, which is coordinating the event along with IIT Madras. The first batch of participants departed from Tamil Nadu for Varanasi Saturday.

This year’s edition of Kashi Tamil Sangamam will also include a ‘Sage Agastya Vehicle Expedition’, which will leave from Tamil Nadu’s Tenkasi district on December 2 and arrive in Kashi on December 10. Travelling by road, they will pass through Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, and take part in activities at several locations.

The third edition of the Sangamam, which was held in February this year, had sage Agastya, a key spiritual figure in Tamil Nadu, as its theme.

The Centre and Tamil Nadu have been at loggerheads over the implementation of the three-language formula, which NEP 2020 suggests. The DMK-led government in Tamil Nadu has seen the three-language policy as an attempt to impose Hindi in the state where students mostly learn two languages – Tamil and English. The Centre, however, has maintained that the three-language policy does not impose any single language on the state.