Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders at the Tamil New Year’s Day celebration in New Delhi on Thursday. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Greeting Tamilians on the occasion of Puthandu, the Tamil New Year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi harked back to ancient Tamil culture and the various references to democratic politics in it, stating that an over 1,100 year old inscription from Tamil Nadu talks about rules for a local body, including provisions for disqualifying a member.
He was speaking at a function organized to mark the occasion, at the residence of Union Minister L Murugan, where Telangana governor Tamilsai Soundarrajan was also present.
“India is the world’s oldest democracy, it is the mother of democracy. There are numerous historical references to this. An important reference is in Tamil Nadu,” he said. He added that in Tamil Nadu’s Uthirameur, an inscription around 1100-1200 years old gives a glimpse of democratic values in the country.
“The inscription found there is like a local constitution for the gram sabha. In this it has been told how the Assembly should be run, what should be the process to elect the members. Not only that, in that era, they had decided how a member would be disqualified,” he said.
The government and the opposition had been lately involved in a conflict over the disqualification of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi from the Lok Sabha, after he was convicted and sentenced for two years by a Surat court in a case of criminal defamation. “As a country, it is our responsibility to take forward this culture and tradition but we all know what happened earlier. Now I have been given this responsibility.
Speaking of his deep regard for Tamil Nadu and its people, Prime Minister Modi spoke at length about his visit to Jaffna in Sri Lanka, and being the first Prime Minister of India to do so. “Tamilians in Sri Lanka were awaiting help and our government did much to address that. When I went to Jaffna, to hand over houses built for Tamilians there by the Indian government, there was a traditional house warming ritual of boiling milk before entering the house, in which I also participated in. When a video of that was shown in Tamil Nadu I received much love from the Tamil people,” he said.
He also spoke about the successful organization of the “Kashi-Tamil Sangamam” held in his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi. “Kashi and Tamil Nadu have deep connections which are ancient and time tested, if you speak to any boatman in the city, he will for sure know several sentences of Tamil. At the Kashi Tamil Sangamam, it was a matter of joy to see thousands of rupees worth of books in Tamil being bought and you will be pleased to know of the Subramaniam Bharathi chair established in Benaras Hindu University (BHU),” he said.
“A lot of wisdom resides in Sangam literature for the future as well, it is there that we hear of descriptions of various kinds of millets or Shri Anna, which our government is also promoting. Poetess Avvaiyyar also speaks of dishes of millets and if anyone asks what is the favourite Naivedyam of Lord Murgan, the answer would be ‘Thenum Thinai Maavum’ (millet honey balls),” he said.
