High Court orders in-depth study of Tirukkural compulsory in schools

In a bid to inculcate moral values among children through ancient literature, the Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday directed the State Government to make Tirukkural part of the school syllabus from next academic year and ensure that students from Class VI to XII get to learn the couplets and their intended meaning in depth and not just superficially.

Justice R. Mahadevan passed the order on a writ petition filed by S. Rajarathinam, a 70-year-old retired Commercial Taxes Officer from Tuticorin district, through his counsel A. Saravanakumar last year seeking a direction to the government to introduce Tirukkural as a separate subject in school curriculum than restricting it to the level of being part of Tamil textbooks.

Plea

Accepting the plea, the judge said that the school syllabus drafting committee could exclude 250 couplets that deal with sexual life and include the rest of 1,080 couplets out of the total 1,330 couplets in the syllabus since “the couplets about friendship, hard work, good character, patience, tolerance and confidence will guide them through even during the most difficult of times.”

Observing that “a crime is committed or a law is violated when a person falls from morality,” the judge said that the spurt in criminal activities involving children and youngsters and increase in number of matrimonial disputes due to “intolerant, dishonest and inhuman lifestyles” make him think that moral science teaching in schools was either insufficient or done away with.

Firmly believing that a thorough understanding of

Tirukkural could streamline the character of an individual right from childhood, the judge said that the compendium of couplets was far superior than all other literary works since it was the third most translated work after the Holy Quran and the Bible and “no other philosophical or religious work has such moral and intellectual approach to problems of life.”

Pointing out that Mahatma Gandhi had learnt Tamil only to read the original text of Tirukkural , after being drawn to it through the writings of Leo Tolstoy, the judge said: “Well, the need of the hour, though may not be another Mahatma, but there is definitely a need for encouraging souls who can make this place a better place to live, in confirmation with the fundamental rights.”