Tamil 038; only Tamil? Only for masses

Tamil Nadu732;s request to introduce Tamil in the Madras High Court was met by a polite refusal from the Centre. This has raised once again the shrill cry of 8216;Protect Tamil8217;.

Tamil Nadu8217;s request to introduce Tamil in the Madras High Court was met by a polite refusal from the Centre. This has raised once again the shrill cry of 8216;Protect Tamil8217;. For DMK president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, who had promised his government would ensure that 8216;the Tamil lamp glowed bright in the high court8217;s portals8217;, a presidential nod for the move is imperative, if only to preserve his party8217;s image as the 8216;guardian8217; of Tamil. Three months after the proposal was sent to Delhi, Karunanidhi 8212; whose DMK, is an influential partner in the UPA government 8212; got a firm 8216;no8217; on Sunday from the Union law ministry.

Karunanidhi8217;s reply, which carried a mild, underlying threat, expressed the desire that the Centre ensured that it obtained the necessary consent of the president, because Tamil Nadu had to be treated on an equal footing with Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the use of the official language of those states was authorised in all the proceedings of the high courts. In identical letters to the prime minister, home and law ministers, Karunanidhi noted that the Madras High Court had, in principle, concurred with the use of Tamil in court proceedings. He, however, omitted to mention that Madras High Court Chief Justice A.P. Shah had expressed reservations about the move.

Justice Shah had written to the CM warning him that any attempt to issue a notification under Article 3482 of the Constitution 8220;may not be fruitful and the desired result will not be achieved8221; if the necessary infrastructure was not in place. In the interest of justice, there should also be sufficiently trained translators to translate the records from English to Tamil, stenographers trained in both English and Tamil and good Tamil translations of classical constitutional treatises, Justice Shah had said. In fact, a large section of senior advocates of the Madras High Court have expressed reservations, arguing that it would be an herculean task to translate all the enactments into Tamil. A large section of the Madras High Court lawyers have also raised objections, pointing out that with India following the Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence, its laws draw heavily from English law and translation would take years.

For the DMK, much of whose initial growth has been attributed to its agitations in the sixties against the move to make Hindi the country8217;s official language, raising the 8216;Tamil8217; banner periodically has always been part of its political agenda. During his previous tenure as chief minister 1996-2001, Karunanidhi created the new portfolio of 8216;Tamil Culture8217;. As soon as he took charge, Tamil Culture Minister Tamizhkudimagan replaced English typewriters at the state secretariat with 8216;Tamil8217; machines and even asked officers to ensure that all their notings on files were in Tamil. He ordered that the English alphabet in number plates of vehicles be changed to Tamil, had priests in temples conducting 8216;archanas8217; in chaste Tamil rather than Sanskrit, and even coined the slogan 8216;Engum Tamizh, Ethilum Tamil8217; Everywhere Tamil, Everything Tamil. It is a different matter that despite being DMK8217;s 8216;Tamil8217; mascot, Tamizhkudimagan was denied a party ticket in the assembly election of 2001. He died in 2004 as 8220;an AIADMK partyman8221;.

In his present tenure among Karunanidhi8217;s first moves was to pass a legislation to introduce Tamil medium up to the standard five in a phased manner in schools. The irony is that this measure comes at a time when the demand for English-medium education is growing. The tragedy that took place in Kumbakonam in July 2004, when an English-medium school crammed with the children of poor labourers went up in flames killing 94 children, cruelly underlined this trend.

Of course, most state politicians send their children to English-medium schools. Karunanidhi8217;s own children, grandchildren, grand-nephews and their children, attended elite English-medium schools in Chennai and Delhi. Karunanidhi made a political novice like Dayanidhi Maran a Union minister because, he said, Maran understood and spoke Hindi as well as English, and would serve the state well in Delhi. So while he thought his grandnephew was an asset for knowing English, his lofty dictum of 8216;Tamil and only Tamil8217; is for the rest of Tamil Nadu.