Bench of the Madras High Court was established here on July 24, 2004, with a fervent hope that, down the years, it would contribute a lot to the development of law but then little would have anyone expected that this court of law will also end up contributing to the development of language.
In one of the finest judgements delivered in the recent past, the Madurai Bench of the High Court had paid rich encomiums to the classical language Tamil and said that it should be the endeavour of the Centre, State government and every Tamilian to take effective steps to teach Tamil to non-Tamils across the globe.
The observation was made by a Division Bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian (who got transferred to Telangana recently) and N. Kirubakaran on a public interest litigation petition filed by R. Lakshminarayanan, secretary of Bharathiyar Thinkers’ Forum, who had been fighting for the cause since August 12, 2011.
Taking a cue from certificate and diploma programmes offered by Central Hindi Directorate to teach Hindi to non-Hindi speakers by providing reading material and audio cassettes at a nominal cost of Rs. 50 and Rs.200 respectively, the elderly advocate wanted to know if the State government would teach Tamil on similar lines.
However, his application made under the Right to Information Act got tossed between the Tamil Development Department (TDD), School Education Department and Higher Education Department without knowing who actually should act on the issue.
The Hindu reported the predicament in its columns on November 17, 2011.
Finally, after persistent efforts taken by the forum, the TDD called for a report from Tamil University in Thanjavur in 2013 and, a year later, the latter sent a proposal to the State government seeking allocation of Rs.37.36 lakh for starting short-duration courses. That too was reported in the The Hindu on August 24, 2014.
Thereafter, “the government has not moved an inch in considering the petitioner's request and so he has approached this court... This court has to necessarily direct the government to act upon the proposal to start correspondence courses to teach Tamil within 12 weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order,” the judges said.
Further, highlighting the richness of the classical language, the court pointed out: “Many may not be aware that Tamil was retained as a second language in Haryana till it was replaced by Punjabi in 2010. The very fact that a Hindi-speaking State had chosen Tamil would speak volumes about its heritage and literary value.”
The Bench went on to state: “In fact, in Ontario, Canada, January has been declared as Tamil Heritage Month by passing Heritage Month Act, 2014. It is the 15th widely spoken language in the world and approximately one per cent of world population speaks Tamil... Whereas, in Tamil Nadu, Tamil is not passed on to the next generation.”
It also quoted George L. Hart, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Professor of Tamil at University of California, Berkeley, and an authority in both the languages to have said: “Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world.”
Referring to various research and translation works undertaken by foreign scholars such as Father Beschi (known popularly as Veerama Munivar), G.U. Pope, M. Winslow, Kamil Vaclav Zvelebil, James Malten, Harold Schiffman and Zean Luc Chevilliard, the judges said that Tamils should “at least save the language from becoming extinct.”
Expressing a sense of gratitude to the court, Mr. Lakshminarayanan said that he was very happy that the judgement had come from a Bench established in Madurai whose erstwhile rulers, the Pandya kings, had developed the language by establishing Sangams where Tamil scholars used to assemble, discuss, deliberate and research.
“I hope that, at least now, the State government would implement the court order in its letter and spirit without forcing me to move a contempt of court application,” he added.
“Many may not be aware that Tamil was retained as a second language in Haryana till it was replaced by Punjabi in 2010”
