Patil decries linguistic chauvinism
President inaugurates five-day World Classical Tamil Conference
The DMK government’s biggest cultural bonanza in 42 years, the first-ever World Classical Tamil Conference (WCTC), was on Wednesday inaugurated by President Pratibha Patil who urged young Tamils to be wary of linguistic chauvinism even as they feel proud of their language.
WCTC is being held for the first time after Tamil was accorded “classical status” in 2004. Over 1,000 scholars from about 50 countries are participating in the five-day meet at Coimbatore.
Speaking from a stage resembling an intricately carved “durbar hall” of a once-splendorous Tamil monarchy, Patil said she was confident that Tamil would evolve to meet the needs of a changing world, even as it drew strength from its roots.
“The establishment of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Chennai is important in this context,” she said.
She also gave away the “First Kalaignar Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Award” to renowned Indologist Dr Asko Parpola.
Dr Parpola, a Vedic and Dravidian studies scholar from the University of Helsinki, was chosen for this award, instituted by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi with a corpus of Rs 1 crore from his personal funds, for sustained research on the yet-to-be-cracked Indus Script.
Award citation
Dr Parpola’s magnum opus, “Deciphering the Indus Script” and subsequent works sought to prove that the “Indus Valley script belonged to the Dravidian family of languages, close to old Tamil,” DMK’s General Secretary and noted Tamil scholar K Anbazhagan said, presenting the award citation.
The award carries a purse of Rs 10 lakh and a gold medal. The Indologist, however, in his acceptance speech, said though it was a “very great honour” to receive the award, he was also a trifle embarrassed “as my work is only partly related to classical Tamil.”
Prof K Sivathamby, a veteran Tamil scholar from Sri Lanka, urged Karunanidhi to bring out a book “introducing Tamil through its language, culture and heritage in all the languages of the UN” to help to take its classical significance world over.
The views of scholars on Tamil visibly moved Karunanidhi, who in his presidential address, stressed that though eight World Tamil Conferences have been held so far, the addition of the word “classical” for this meet not only made the conclave different, but infused it with a greater meaning.
Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala released a special souvenir to mark the WCTC.
