‘DMK govt. keen on promoting Tamil and honouring Tamil scholars’

Tamil Nadu government recognizes Tamil scholars with awards, increased prize money, Tamil language promotion, and translation initiatives.

The Tamil Nadu government has instituted 35 awards to recognise the work of Tamil scholars and has increased the prize money from ₹1 lakh to ₹2 lakh apart from instituting a brand new award called ‘Ilakkiya Maamani’ for three Tamil scholars, each of whom will receive ₹5 lakh each. According to an official release, around 260 Tamil scholars have been awarded in total.

The State government will also organise the Second World Tamil Semmozhi conference in 2025 in Chennai. Tamil has been given prominence in the DMK’s tenure as it has given preference to those who studied in Tamil medium in State government jobs Tamil. In temples worships could be offered in Tamil.

The State also nationalised the works of renowned Tamil writers and scholars to make it easily available for the common public. One of the most important schemes rolled out by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin was the housing scheme which has benefited Tamil scholars on Kalaignar M. Karunandhi’s 97th birthday on June 3, 2021.

The government has given financial assistance to set up a ‘Tamil Chair’ in universities in neighbouring States and in foreign countries. Additionally, the State government has rolled out ‘Kural Mutrodhal’ scheme, which aims to reiterate Tirukkural’s greatness among the student community, by providing prize money of ₹15,000 to 451 students who had managed to study all 1,330 couplets.

A fund of ₹1 crore has been allotted to set up ‘Tamil Parapurai Kazhagam’, which would aim to teach Tamil language to Tamils living outside Tamil Nadu and ₹15 lakh was set aside to teach life lessons and philosophy in Sangam literature. The State government has also earmarked ₹5 crore to translate Dr. Ambedkar’s works into Tamil language through Tamil development department.

Mr. Stalin also released the translated version of scholar Robert Caldwell’s ‘A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages’, which was translated into Tamil by professor Pa. Ra. Subramanian on February 16, 2022. Also, well-known Greek epics such as Homer’s Iliad and ‘Odyssey’ have also been translated.