Chennai: The various schemes launched by the present DMK government for the development of Tamil language and literature in the past three years have earned praise from global Tamil scholars, who are keenly looking forward to the Second Classical Tamil Conference to be held in June, 2015, for 5 days in Chennai.
The first Classical Tamil Conference was held at Coimbatore in 2010 during the tenure of M Karunanidhi and the next such meet for an international gathering of scholars, poets, political leaders and celebrities with an interest in Tamil people, Tamil language and Tamil literature is being organized by M K Stalin, who has given utmost importance for the growth of Tamil.
Tamil lovers are referring to many initiatives taken by Stalin to enable Tamil get its due in the scheme of things like the one announcing that ‘Neeradum Kadaludutha,’ the song in praise of Mother Tamil, would be the State’s anthem and issued clear instructions on the manner it should played with people raising in respect and so on.
Though the song had been adopted as a praise of Tamil Mother since 1970, it was Stalin who ensured that it was given its pride of place, said the Tamil lovers who also pointed out that the Chief Minister was making all attempts to make Tamil the language of governance and taking steps for the development of the ancient language.
Among the steps taken were the raising of the prize money given away by the government with the 35 awards instituted in the name scholars, leaders, poets and literary from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh and the instituting of new awards like the ‘Ilakiya Maamani’ (Great Gems of Literature) and the ‘Thagaisal Tamilar’ (Extraordinary Tamilian) to honour great personalities from the State
While the first two Thagaisal Tamilar awards were given away by the Public Department, it would be the responsibility of the Department for Tamil Development, under which the diverse initiatives for developing, popularizing and propagating Tamil in other States and countries have been taken by the government.
The government paid Rs 2.85 crore towards obtaining the copyrights of books by 22 Tamil authors that were nationalized and also presented houses in the projects of Tamil Nadu Housing Board to writers who won the Sahitya Akademi Award or the M Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Award.
In one of the bids to popularize Tamil in the global academic circles, the government set up Tamil chairs in international universities. The Cologne University in Germany was given Rs 1.25 crore for setting up the Tamil char of study and the Houston University in the US was given Rs 2.5 crore.
Other steps include the donation of Rs 75 lakh for the construction of a building to teach Tami by the Navi Mumbai Tamil Sangam, Rs 5 crore for a separate department for Tamil Literary studies in the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and Rs 15 lakh to the Bhubaneswar Tamil Sangam in Odisha for teaching Tamil.
Some of the other measures that had come in for praise include the encouraging of students to learn Tamil and master the Tamil poetic work Thirukural. Students won prizes of Rs 15,000 each for the complete reading of Thirukkural contest, which cost the government Rs 63,46,500.
