Language row: Tamil Nadu to move Supreme Court against Centre withholding funds, says Stalin

Chennai: Contending that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 will undermine reservation, destroy India’s pluralistic culture and help impose a unitary “Sanskritized” national identity, Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday announced that the Tamil Nadu government will drag the Centre to the Supreme Court for withholding Rs 2,152 crores under Samagra Shiksha.

Releasing a book ‘NEP 2020: Madha Yaanai’ (Rogue Elephant) penned by School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, Stalin accused the BJP-led Union Government of seeking to saffronize everything, starting with education. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education Digvijaya Singh, and former Supreme Court judge V Gopala Gowda received the first copies.

Stalin said the only solution to stop saffronisation of education in India was to bring education back to the State List of the Constitution from the Concurrent List and asserted that his Dravidian Model of governance will continue to wield the sword against the NEP.

“Our fight is critical because the NEP will undermine reservations. Only as long as reservation exists, oppressed and backward communities will have access to higher education. The NEP will destroy our pluralistic culture, and their (BJP’s) sole aim is to dismantle India’s unity and impose an unitary Sanskritized national identity,” Stalin said.

He recalled Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent statement that NEP 2020 will promote Sanskrit. “The Home Minister’s statement has only confirmed what we have been warning about for the past several years. This is an attempt to destroy languages like Tamil…we must intensify our struggle to bring back language to the State list,” he said.

Tearing into the Centre for withholding Rs 2,152 crore under Samagra Shiksha to Tamil Nadu for not implementing the NEP, Stalin termed the move as “petty politics” of the BJP. “The Tamil Nadu government will certainly move the Supreme Court against this injustice. Just as we have secured landmark judgments protecting states’ rights, I am confident we will win this case too,” Stalin added.

Suggesting that the RSS was behind the formulation of NEP 2020, Singh said the only language that the organisation understands is that of confrontation. “We are here to hold that spear against you. The RSS has been using education to poison and influence the minds of youngsters,” he said, adding that the NEP 2020 violates a number of articles in the Constitution.

He also said the Congress stands together with the DMK and other like-minded parties in their fight to protect democracy and to stop the “rogue elephant” in the tracks.

Justice Gowda said NEP 2020 ignores the federal features of India’s Constitution by ignoring the role of state governments and asserted that Governors cannot bulldoze the Legislature. “People are supreme and sovereign in a democracy. The Governors have been taught a good lesson by the Supreme Court,” he said.