Taking their fight for their linguistic rights to a new high, the Telugu community of Tamil Nadu has announced a massive protest programme on November 1 in Hosur, considered as the Telugu heartland of the neighbouring State.
The programme is planned under the banner of Tamil Nadu Telugu Yuvasakthi (TNTY). “November 1 is the date when Andhra Pradesh was carved out of Madras on linguistic basis, but we do not enjoy any linguistic rights there. That’s why we chose that date,” TNTY president Kethireddy Jagadishwar Reddy told The Hindu . YSR Congress legislators Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, R.K. Roja, CPI national leader K. Narayana and film producer Thammareddy Bharadwaja, while Hosur MLA G. Gopinath, who is famous for persistently speaking in Telugu in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, is expected to take the lead.
The furore started with the ‘Tamil Learning Act 2006’ passed by the then DMK government which made learning Tamil under Part-I compulsory, part-II English compulsory from I to X standard in a phased manner. Students with mother tongue other than Tamil can learn their respective languages under part-IV as an optional subject, but their marks will not appear in the score card, the Act said.
There are around 1,500 villages in Krishnagiri district bordering AP with high Telugu and Kannada speaking population living since hundreds of years, even before the division of composite Madras State.
Linguistic minorities such as Telugu and Kannada speaking people are widely present in 173 revenue villages in Hosur and 93 revenue villages in Denkanikottai taluk.
“The second order issued in 2010, making it mandatory for students from VI to X class to compulsorily study Tamil as part-I and English as part-II electives, but it does not state under which medium of language the other three subjects are to be studied,” Mr. Reddy said.
Unlike the other States where three-language format is in practice, Tamil Nadu offers only two languages. “Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu C.N. Annadurai allowed mother tongue as the first language and English as the second language, but now the government is trampling on our right to study our mother tongue by making Tamil compulsory subject,” Mr. Reddy said.
Tamil Nadu Telugu Yuvasakthi calls for a protest in Hosur on November 1, the date on which AP was carved out from the then Madras State
