PREDICTABLY PROPAGATION of hindi and Sanskrit by Hindi zealots of the educationally backward BIMARU (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh) states with the tacit support of bigwigs of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, has provoked a backlash in anti-Hindi peninsular India. On September 18, the AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu (currently led by Jayalalithaa proxy O. Paneerselvam) resurrected the dormant Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act, 2006 (introduced by the Karunanidhi-led DMK government which was in power 2006-2011) making Tamil a compulsory language in all schools statewide including primary-secondaries affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) from the next academic year (2015-16). For the first time, all 565 CBSE and 468 CISCE-affiliated schools have been asked to introduce Tamil in class I next year, and ensure that all students up to class X learn the state™s dominant language by 2024-25. The applicability of the Act to CBSE and CISCE schools comes nine years after it was made compulsory in 2006 for 52,303 government schools and 6,500 unaided private matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu and governed by the Directorate of Matriculation Schools) affiliated with the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education. Government and matriculation schools were directed to make Tamil language learning mandatory for class I students in 2006 and scale it up to class X by 2015-16. Hitherto, government schools followed the state™s two-language policy ” Tamil and English ” introduced in 1967 following the anti-Hindi agitation of 1965, but private matriculation schools offered students the choice of Tamil or Hindi up to middle school and Tamil, Hindi, French or other languages in high school as the elective second language. Therefore, a letter issued to all 6,500 affiliated schools by the director of matriculation schools on February 10 stating that Tamil will become a compulsory language paper for class X students in the academic year 2015-2016 and asking schools to submit preparedness reports, has evoked strong protest from the Association of Matriculation Higher Secondary Schools which has appealed to the Madras high court for a stay order. œAlthough the Tamil Nadu Tamil Learning Act was enacted in June 2006, the state government appointed officials to monitor its implementation only in April 2012. As many schools have yet to start teaching Tamil as a second language, it will be difficult for class X students studying other languages to suddenly shift to Tamil. Moreover, since Tamil Nadu has a two-language policy, students whose mother tongue is not Tamil and those whose parents are on transfer from other states shouldn™t be forced to study Tamil. Imposing Tamil on unaided minority institutions also adversely affects their fundamental rights. Students should have a right to choose their second language, says K.R. Nandha Kumar, state general secretary, Tamil Nadu Nursery, Primary, Matric and Higher Secondary Schools™ Association. The latest diktat of the state government to matriculation schools is yet another blow to their autonomy. Five years ago, the Tamil Nadu Schools…
