Different strokes by judge, ex-VC on Tamil

CHENNAI: An innocuous book release function turned into a forum for an interesting debate on whether Tamil or English should be the medium of instruction in schools, with a high court judge backing the mother tongue and a former vice-chancellor of the Tamil University rooting for English.


While presiding over the function where two English books titled Tirukkural Ethics for Humanity and Tirukkural Tenets for Right Living were released, Justice D Hari Paranthaman of the Madras High Court raised concerns over the lack of interest among Tamils in learning their mother tongue. He said students in the State could pass out from schools without learning Tamil. “Tamil is rejected in Tamil Nadu as a medium of instruction,” he said.

Of late, he said, the essence of the Tamil language was being diluted with the inclusion of more number of English words in it, apart from Sanskrit, and called on scholars to take steps to cleanse Tamil of its impurities. “The past generation was thinking in Tamil and wrote in English. But the present generation thinks and writes only in English,” he rued. However, Avvai Natarajan, former vice-chancellor of the Tamil University, took everyone by surprise by extending his support for English. He argued that English was a link language between people from various regions in the country. Natarajan is also the vice-chairperson of a five-member seminar organising committee set up for the World Classical Tamil Conference.

Later, Erode Tamilanban, a renowned Tamil poet, echoed Natarajan.

He is part of the reception committee for the World Tamil meet.