Political row erupts in Tamil Nadu after anthem fiasco

A Hindi month celebration at Doordarshan Chennai sparked a political controversy on Friday with chief minister MK Stalin criticising the event and later governor RN Ravi, after performers missed a sentence with references to “Dravida” while singing the Tamil Nadu state anthem at the function.

Later in the day, Ravi –– who was the chief guest at the function –– hit back, terming Stalin’s comments “regrettable” and accusing the CM of making a racist remark against him.

“I strongly condemn the celebration of Hindi month valedictory function along with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Chennai Doordarshan. Hon’ble @PMOIndia, The Constitution of India does not grant national language status to any language. In a multilingual nation, celebrating Hindi Month in non-Hindi-speaking states is seen as an attempt to belittle other languages,” Stalin wrote in a post on X.

“Therefore, I suggest that holding such Hindi-oriented events in non-Hindi speaking states could be avoided, and instead, the celebration of the local language month in the respective states should be encouraged.”

He also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasising that the Constitution did not grant national language status to any language, and Hindi and English are only for official purposes. He suggested avoiding Hindi language programmes in non-Hindi-speaking states.

“It has been announced that the closing ceremony of the Hindi Month celebrations and Golden Jubilee celebrations of Chennai Television will be held this evening at Doordarshan Tamil in Chennai, and Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi will be the special guest. This blatant attempt to impose Hindi is strongly condemned,” he wrote.

Later in the day, a political uproar erupted after singers missed a line — “Thekkanamum athirsirantha Dravida nalthirunaadum”, which roughly translates to the great Dravidian nation — from Tamil Nadu’s state anthem during the event.

Stalin accused governor Ravi, who presided the function, of “deliberately insulting” Tamil Nadu and the sentiments of the people of the southern state, and demanded that the Centre should immediately “recall” the governor.

Stalin alleged that removing the words was a violation. “Will the governor, suffering from the Dravidian allergy, ask the people to sing the national anthem leaving out Dravida?” he asked.

Leader of the Opposition and AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami, too, strongly condemned the omission, calling it a “blunder”.

Doordarshan Chennai issued an apology, saying the sentence was missed “inadvertently” due to a distraction, adding that there was no intention from the singers to disrespect Tamil or the anthem.

The DMK-led Tamil Nadu government has, in the past, accused the governor, as well as the ruling BJP at the Centre, of trying to push Hindi in its policies at the cost of regional tongues, but the Union government has dismissed these concerns and said it wanted to help all Indian languages.

On Friday, DMK’s youth wing members gathered outside the DD Chennai office and held a protest.

Ravi, however, termed Stalin’s comments as regrettable.

As a proud Indian I myself have taken numerous substantive initiatives to spread Tamil, the oldest and richest living language, in other states of the country, the latest being to set up, with cooperation of the Assam govt, a Tamil diploma course in Gauhati University for spread of Tamil in the North East,” Ravi was quoted in a post by the Raj Bhawan on X.

“Making racist remark and alleging incorrect imputations against governor by the chief minister is unfortunately cheap and lowers the dignity of the high constitutional office of the chief minister.”

The Raj Bhavan in a statement also said that the “Governor or his office has no role in this except that he participated in the programme.”