Sanskrit row: Drop George Hart’s essay from class 12 textbook – K S Azhagiri

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Mr K S Azhagiri on Friday said his party will be constrained to make bonfires of this year's 12th standard State Board English text books across TN, if the AIADMK government did not take immediate steps to drop a research essay written by the Tamil scholar George L Hart who has claimed that “Sanskrit is much older than Tamil language.”

While the essay by the Professor of Tamil Language at the University of California, Berkeley, included in this year's English syllabi of the State Board speaks of Classical Tamil language's antiquity going back to 300 BCE, the author, nonetheless states Sanskrit is much more ancient than Tamil, with the origins of Sanskrit going back as far as 2000 BCE, Mr Azhagiri said in a statement here.

“This is a travesty of historical facts” and amounts to belittling the ancient status of Tamil, which as a classical language is on par with Sanskrit if not more, Mr Azhagiri said. Alleging that such distortion was usually done by the Sangh Parivar and the BJP, the TNCC president asked whether the AIADMK government, given its roots in Tamil Nadu and Tamil culture, accepted Prof Hart's views on Sanskrit.

“Why is the AIADMK so keen to carry the palanquin for the BJP in asserting the superiority of Sanskrit,” asked Azhagiri and reminded that it was the Congress-led UPA in the year 2005 had conferred 'classical status' to Tamil language.

STALIN TWEETS: Expressing shock and dismay at the downgrading of Tamil's antiquity in the 12th English text, the DMK president M K Stalin asked in a tweet, “is this Tamil Nadu government or is it Sanskrit Sarkar?”