Governor RN Ravi faced unwarranted criticism after a few words were mistakenly omitted during the rendition of the ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ at the DD Tamil Golden Jubilee celebration. While the controversy was fueled by political factions, the missing words, ‘Dravida Nal Thirunadu,’ carry no deep historical or cultural significance in Tamil texts. The backlash, including a distasteful tweet by Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister, questions whether the criticism is being used to stoke regional sentiments against the Governor, Hindi, and the Centre.
Thamizh Thai Vazhthu
The ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ is attributed to ‘Manonmaniam’ Perumal Sundaranar Pillai. P.Sundaranar Pillai was born in the Alappuzha region, currently in the Indian state of Kerala in Bharat on 4 April 1855 to Perumal Pillai and Madathi Ammal.
P Sundaram grew up in a very religious environment learning the Thevarams and Thiruvasagam, which are spiritual books on Shaivism. His Tamil teacher was ‘Nagapattinam Narayanasamy’. Nagapattinam Narayanasamy was also the Tamil teacher of Maraimalai Adigal.
P Sundaranar obtained his graduation degree in 1876. He received a scholarship in the Tamizh language. He also worked as a teacher for some time. He also became a writer. His magnum opus was ‘Manonmaniam’, a drama literary piece, which was published in 1891.
How Did The Song Become The Dravidianists’ Favourite
In 1970, the then Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, M Karunanidhi declared a few lines from ‘Manonmaniam’ as ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ or ‘Tamil Mother Invocation’. It was actually known as ‘Thamizhanangu Invocation’(தமிழணங்கு வணக்கம்‘ ) in the original text of ‘’MANONMANIAM’, which literary translates as ‘ Invocation to the Divine Tamil Mother’ or ‘Invocation to the Tamil Goddess’. Thus, there is only a reference to the ‘Thamizh Goddess’ and no mention of any ‘Thamizh Thai’ or ‘Thamizh Mother’ in the original text of ‘Manonmaniam.’ The ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ as declared by then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi was to be sung as a prayer song at the commencement of all functions organized by the Tamilnadu government departments and it was to be sung in Carnatic music Mohana ragam and Thisra talam. Since then, the song has been sung at the commencement of all public functions by Government departments in Tamil Nadu.
Doordarshan & The Hindi Month Celebrations
Now, Doordarshan is an autonomous public Television broadcaster under the Government of India. It is one of the two divisions of Prasar Bharti. The word ‘Doordarshan’ itself is a combination of two Hindi words, ‘door’, which means ‘distant’ in Hindi, and ‘darshan’, which means ‘seeing’ in Hindi. The name, ‘Doordarshan’, thus translates into ‘distant vision’ or ‘television’. The Tamil language satellite Television channel of Doordarshan was earlier known as DD Podhigai. It was renamed DD Tamil on 19 January 2024. DD is the short form of Doordarshan. Now, on 18 October 2024, there was the Hindi Month Valedictory Function and Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Doordarshan at the DD Tamil Chennai office in Tamilnadu. The Chief Guest of the programme was RN Ravi, Honourable Governor of Tamilnadu.
There were many in the ruling dispensation of Tamilnadu, who found it ‘odd’ that DD Tamil was celebrating Hindi Month with various programmes and competitions. They seem to be waiting for an opportunity to turn the sentiments of the Tamil people against the Central Government and the Hindi language. However, the truth is that the Tamil people want to learn Hindi and to travel all over India. This has been substantiated by the record number of students appearing for and clearing the Hindi Prachar Sabha Exams. What is actually odd is the double standards of the ruling political dispensation of Tamil Nadu, which does not oppose English, a foreign language imposed by our former British rulers but which, always opposes Hindi, a Bharatiya language. There is nothing wrong in celebrating the Hindi language, which is also an official language of Bharat at the regional office of a national public service broadcaster run by the Government of India.
So, during the Hindi Month Celebration valedictory function at the DD Tamil office in Chennai, the declared ‘A group sang Tamil Mother Invocation’ song of people including elders and youngsters. The declared ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu or Tamil Mother Invocation’ Song was sung well but owing to human error, a few words were missed by the singers. The few words, which were not sung were ‘Dravida Nal Thirunadu’ or ‘Good Dravida Land’. Now, one must always approach issues with humaneness, sensitivity, and logical reasoning. It is quite possible that the singers stuttered out of stage fright, which is quite common or they could have been victims of a temporary memory failure, which is also not uncommon. We must not forget that there were both young and old people in the group of singers. Later, an apology was issued by DD Tamil admitting the mistake of the singers of the ‘Thamizhanangu Vanakkam’.
Dravidam Linked To Tamil Literature Or Tamil Politics?
The Governor, RN Ravi can, in no way, be held responsible for the human error on behalf of the singers of the function organized by DD Tamil. Now, even if we assume that a few words were left out on purpose to please anybody – there is no legal basis for the criticism as the word ’Dravida land’ itself does not exist in the Tamil language lexicon. There is no ‘Dravida’ word in any of the Sangam Era Tamil texts nor was there any ‘Dravida’ word mentioned/in use during the reign of the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, and Pallavas. In fact, the word, ‘Dravida’ is a latter-language construct, which evolved a couple of hundreds of years ago to refer to the South of India- the area covering present-day Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamilnadu.
In fact, the word, ‘Dravidam’ was largely emphasized and promoted by the trio of political leaders – Erode Venkatappa Ramaswamy (of Karnataka origin), C.N. Annadurai( of Telugu origin) and M. Karunanidhi( originally from Ongole district of Andhra Pradesh)– who were not of Tamil origin.
In this context, one finds it extremely disturbing to note the reference to ‘Dravida land’ in what is known as ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’. ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ itself was not so named so by its composer, Manonmaniam Sundaranar Pillai, who called it ‘Tamizhanangu Vanakkam’, which when translated means ‘Invocation to Divine Tamil Woman’ or ‘Invocation to Tamil Goddess’. ‘Dravida land’ has no contextual meaning in matters concerning Tamil land, language, literature, culture, geography, history and its people.
In addition, it has been strongly established and widely accepted in scholarly circles that there is no validity to the Aryan-Dravidian Theory. Both the words ‘Aryan’ and ‘Dravidian’ have zero historical or cultural context and are used only for literary value addition. Everyone knows that the British imperialists constructed the Aryan-Dravidian hypothesis to befuddle the Indian masses and to subjugate Indians using their evil strategy of DIVIDE and RULE.
Thus, one can notice multiple aberrations, right from the origin of the nomenclature of the Tamizh Goddess Invocation to the references to the ‘Dravida land’ in the song. One can also notice that there are references to the Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, and Tulu languages in the longer version of the Invocation dedicated to the Divine Tamil Goddess according to its author Sundaram Pillai, which was later declared as ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ by M.Karunanidhi!
Targetting Governor RN Ravi
Anyways, returning to the current context of the raging controversy regarding the rendition of the ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ or ‘Mother Tamil Invocation’ – how can the Governor of Tamil Nadu, RN Ravi be held responsible for a supposed mistake committed by the singers of the declared ‘Thamizh Thai Vazhthu’ during the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Doordarshan, just because he was the Chief Guest of the Public Function. This is both bizarre and illogical as well as downright unethical. A Governor of a State has to attend hundreds of Public Functions and he cannot be held accountable for every action of every participant and organizer of every public function that he attends!
In the context of what happened at the DD Tamil public function, in a tweet in the Tamil language on social media platform X, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu asked the Governor, ‘whether he was a ‘Governor’ or an ‘Aryan’?’. It is a cruel and distasteful act to insult a person based on his or her race and more so in the context of a person occupying a very high constitutional post. Article 15 of the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. One can only be in awe of the graciousness and resilience of Governor RN Ravi, who may hail from another part of Bharat but who has always been loving and respectful towards all religions, races, castes, languages, regions, and cultures.
One can note that there have been multiple and repeated attempts by the ruling dispensation to turn the sentiments of the Tamil people against the current Governor of Tamilnadu, the current Central Government, and the Hindi language. They fail to realise the Tamil people are watching everything carefully and will punish the wrongdoers at the right time in an apt way. Governor Ravi has been at the receiving end of multiple unwarranted insults and hurts. One wonders if it is being done just to lower the morale of an honest, God-fearing, religious, intelligent, and intellectual person, who wears his heart on his sleeve and openly practices, appreciates, and promotes SANATANA DHARMA. Do the ‘Dravidian’ gangs want to break a good human being, a Sanatani, and a dignified person who is occupying a high position? Their agenda will not be allowed to succeed in Tamilnadu. The ordinary people are waking up and seeing through the Maya of Dravidam.
Time To Embrace Mahakavi’s Composition?
Sometimes, one also wonders that when the present State Anthem is so full of continuous controversies, would it not be the right time to replace the same with a better and non-controversial one like with the ‘Senthamizh Nadu’ poem by Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathiyar. After all, there can be no logical opposition to the right argument that Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathiyar was a greater poet, patriot, scholar, and writer than Manonmaniam Sundaranar Pillai. Who can better represent the Tamil land, language, people, culture, and aspirations through his literary compositions than the one and only MAHAKAVI?!
Dr. S. Padmapriya is an author and thinker based out of Chennai.
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