Ever since the news about the proposed three-language education policy with Hindi as a compulsory third language in non-Hindi states came out, A.R. Rahman has been posting tweets against the proposal in a subtle yet assertive manner.
The Oscar winning music composer’s latest tweet, containing a single word — ‘Autonomous’ along with its meaning from the Cambridge dictionary website has created waves on social media platforms, especially since it seemed to be a telling comment on what the Tamils feel about the language issue.
Interestingly, reactions and re-tweets to Rahman’s post have been pouring in, as many assumed that he was clearly taking a dig at the Central Government. However, there was also general disbelief over whether it was really Rahman who had tweeted.
On his part, he clarifies, “Tamil children should have the choice to respect their mother tongue first and then the freedom to choose to learn Hindi or not. This is what I meant by autonomy.”
The Mozart of Madras adds with a smile, “I respect all languages and love singing in Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam Bengali, Punjabi, Arabic, Farsi and English. Nobody forces me. And now that everything has ended peacefully, case closed.”
Meanwhile, several Twitter users have been praising ARR for his bold tweet and posting hilarious stuff in his support. ‘Contractor Surya Born to Win’ tagged Nesamani Vadivelu, a hashtag that was recently trending globally and posted, “Nesamani — Central Government. Krishnamoorthy — AR Rahman, ARR’s Tweet — Suthiyal.”
Arvindh Ram wrote, “Sir is on troll mode. Loving it,” while Arvind Kumar wrote, “Power of calmness, sharp, knowledge and love”.
Yet another supporter, Prabhakaran tweeted, “Sir u are very gutsy... Message to central government. Bird commented — Ivaraiye Pesa Vechitaanuva..(You even made a person like Rahman speak on an issue).”
Vignesh _STR wrote, “If state gets autonomy, then blame game between centre and state would reduce.”
Keeping up his posts, the musician first posted a video of Punjabi singer Jasdeep Jogi singing one of his hit Tamil compositions Innum Konjam Neram Iruntha Than Enna and captioned it as “Tamizh is spreading in Punjab.”
Subsequently, he took to Twitter to express that he was content with the changed outcome. “Hindi is not compulsory in TN. The draft policy has been revised.”
