Makkal Needhi Maiam founder Kamal Haasan and PMK youth-wing leader Anbumani Ramadoss on Sunday criticised the Union government for failing to translate the National Education Policy (NEP) document, released recently in 17 languages, into Tamil.
Mr. Haasan said the Union government had translated the NEP into several languages, but not Tamil.
“It is unacceptable that Tamil has been ignored. It is merely a form of play acting to quote Tirukkural and Bharathiyar poems on stage. In reality, they are waging a war on the culture of the Tamil land and are uprooting its rights,” he said.
Mr. Anbumani said while the NEP had been released in 17 languages, it had not been released in Tamil, the oldest language in India.
“While the document has been released in Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Konkani, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Nepali, Odiya, Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Marathi, Punjabi, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri and Sandhali, it has not been released in Tamil. Several aspects of the NEP are being opposed in Tamil Nadu. However, it has been accepted as the official document and it is only fair that it is released in all 22 languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution,” he said.
Mr. Anbumani added that the Union government’s policy, opposing Tamil, was wrong and that it should be rectified at the earliest.
