Stalin announces Tamil Nadu government literary award for 7 non-Hindi languages, hits out at Centre

Chennai: Chief Minister M K Stalin on Sunday announced annual literary awards in 7 languages including Tamil, Bengali and Marathi and slammed the Centre for alleged political intervention in Sahitya Akademi awards.

The award, under the auspices of the Tamil Nadu government, will carry Rs 5 lakh cash prize, he said, adding it is named as "Semmozhi Illakiya Virudhu (Classical Language Literary Award)."

In the first phase, awards will be for the best works in the languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odiya, Bengali and Marathi. In his address at the valedictory event of the Chennai International Book Fair (CIBF-2026), the chief minister said the Sahitya Akademi awards announcement had been cancelled recently and it was discomfiting.

Alleging intervention by the Union Culture Ministry, the Chief Minister said there was growing uncertainty surrounding literary awards and warned that “political interventions, even in art and literary awards, are dangerous.”

Under these circumstances, he said several writers and representatives of art and literary bodies had appealed to him for an appropriate and constructive counter-action plan. “We also have a realisation that this is the need of the hour and I would like to make an announcement that will make you all happy,” the Chief Minister said.

Accordingly, he announced that the Tamil Nadu government would institute “national-level” awards every year for the best literary works in selected Indian languages.

“I am very happy to announce this. In the first phase, an award in the name of ‘Semmozhi Illakiya Virudhu’ will be given for the best works in the languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odiya, Bengali and Marathi. The award for each language carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh,” he said.

The Chief Minister said the Tamil Nadu government would act as a patron and entrust the selection process to independent experts. To ensure quality and transparency, a separate committee comprising reputed writers will be constituted for each language to select the awardees.

Further, he said the Dravidian model government led by him had taken several initiatives to take knowledge to every household and the book fair was an important step.

In this book fair, great importance had been placed on translations and copyright exchanges, he said.

Further Stalin said: "The victory of International Booker Prize winner, Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq, who is present here, shows its (translations and copyright transfers) importance."

Only because Mushtaq's work was translated into English (Heart Lamp), it drew world-wide attention, he added.

"Our book festival has been greatly enriched today by the arrival of the woman writer from our Dravidian language family, who belongs to a minority community, opposes regressive attitudes, and she has the perspective of social justice," he said.

The chief minister released as many as 84 books, including Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation's 44 books and the Public Library's 40 books.

The Chennai International Book Fair is organised by the Tamil Nadu government with the vision of "Taking Tamil to the world, bringing the world to Tamil," through global literature and cultural exchanges.

The fourth edition of the CIBF this year, 2026, had the theme of 'A conversation between civilisations.'

According to the government, this year, over 100 countries took part in the book fair which served as a B2B platform for the publishers and over 1,800 MoUs were inked involving 102 countries.

The MoUs cover 1,273 pacts involving translation of content in Tamil to other languages and 260 agreements on bringing content to Tamil from other languages.

The CIBF was held from January 16 to 18 at Kalaivanar Arangam here.

The CM said the next government to be formed in the state --following the Assembly election in March-April this year -- would be the Dravidian model regime's "2.0" version.

Following a win in polls, when the DMK regime retains power, the international book fair would be held on a much bigger scale.

Ministers including PK Sekar Babu (Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments), and Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi (School Education) and Chennai Mayor R Priya and elected representatives took part.