A Dispute Revives: Tamil Nadu Day Is Nov 1 Or July 18
The same argument had been put forth – that the formation day should be commemorated and not the date of christening – by many politicians since 2022 though the DMK government that was in power till about two months ago.
Chennai: The State government’s recent announcement on the celebration of ‘Tamil Nadu Day’ on July 18 through the organization of several competitions for school students has resurrected an old dispute over the date with PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss urging the new TVK government to not follow the date fixed by the DMK government under M K Stalin in 2022.
Anbumani Ramadoss’s argument is that November 1 was the date to celebrate the formation of Tamil Nadu as it was on that date in in 1956 the Madras State came into existence after the disintegration of the Madras Presidency that acceded territories on the basis of linguistic majority .to other States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala.
While former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Edappadi K Palaniswai had declared in 2019 that November 1 would be celebrated as Tamil Nadu Day, M K Stalin, after the DMK came power, changed the date to July 18 to commemorate the naming of the Madras State as Tamil Nadu during the tenure of C N Annadurai in the first DMK government.
Calling that move as a distortion of history, Anbumani Ramadoss urged the TVK government not toe the line of the DMK, saying that July 18 was the date on which the initiative for the rechristening the State was made and that it was not the State formation Day.
The same argument had been put forth – that the formation day should be commemorated and not the date of christening – by many politicians since 2022 though the DMK government that was in power till about two months ago.
Now that the DMK is out of power, the groups that were against remembering the date on which the Annadurai government took the initiative to give the name ‘Tamil Nadu’ to the State, making it the first State in the country to be named after the language spoken by most of the people of the land, have revived their campaign.
Though the TVK government has now announced competitions for students to commemorate Tamil Nadu Day on July 18 when the Assembly passed the resolution to change the name in 1968. The State was actually renamed as Tamil Nadu on January 14, 1969.
