Forty-seven years ago, in January 1968, Madras hosted the second World Tamil Conference.
The principles of liberalism and openness in the Tamil linguistic tradition were exalted as reasons for its lasting endurance over centuries.
President Zakir Husain, who had flown down from Delhi to give the inaugural address, had said, “Tamil holds an honoured place among our languages, it has forged vital links between the North and the South; it is an international language spoken in lands outside of India.”
Predictably, the conference, organised by the C.N. Annadurai government, was also an articulation of Tamil nationalism at its peak.
Addressing the large gathering at the inauguration, the Chief Minister said, “Tamil people believe in friendship with others and respect for other languages… however we will not tolerate any attempt to deny Tamil its rightful and honoured place.”
The conference was conceived of as a grand public festival. The ceremony, opened with a colourful Tamil cultural pageant, and ran through Mount Road, Gemini, Cathedral and South Beach Road, from Island Grounds, covering a distance of 5 miles. Tamil cultural icons like Kannagi, Kamban, Valluvar, and Avvai were represented in 27 tableaux during the procession.
With schools having declared holidays, the rally, which began at 2.45 p.m., was witnessed by mammoth crowds.
Many of the Tamil diaspora even made it a point to visit Madras to witness the spectacle. Swami Venkatesananda from Mauritius, for instance, in a letter to the editor, wrote, “I am glad I returned to Madras after an absence of seven years from the country, in time to attend the second World Tamil conference There are a large number of Tamilians in Reunion Islands (near Mauritius) whose children are in the process of forgetting their language, culture and religious tradition. It is urgent that something should be done.”
Meanwhile, the impulse of insular regional chauvinism was warned against by the participating scholars.
According to reports in The Hindu , Dr. Chelisher, a well-known Soviet Tamil scholar, is said to have urged people to look to the future rather than harp on the past greatness of Tamil.
Representatives from the University of Jerusalem, Malaysia and Ceylon also expressed their concern about puritanism hampering the growth of the language.
They said, “Persons must be free to use Tamil alone or Tamil and English or English alone, depending on the need… The kind of cultural borrowing that could result from such practice would ensure the quickest and most enduring development of Tamil into a modern language.”
At a time when the Tamil literary world reels from the distressing silencing of writer Perumal Murugan, the progressive principles of the second World Tamil conference offer significant lessons.
