Tamil Nadu State song row triggers Governor-CM spat

Tamil Nadu CM Stalin demands recall of Governor; R.N. Ravi accuses Stalin of making ‘racist remark’ against him

Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi on Friday (October 18, 2024) accused Chief Minister M.K. Stalin of making a ‘racist remark’ against him after the latter wondered if he was the “Governor” or an “Aryan”. Mr. Stalin had made the remarks following a distorted rendition of the State anthem eclipsing the reference to the glory of the “Dravida” land at an official function of DD Chennai in which Mr. Ravi participated.

“Hon’ble Chief Minister Thiru.@mkstalin has issued a regrettable tweet this evening in which he made a racist remark against me and levelled false allegation of showing disrespect to Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu....Making racist remark and alleging incorrect imputations against governor by the chief minister is unfortunately cheap and lowers the dignity of the high constitutional office of the chief minister. Since he rushed to public with his racist remarks and false imputations I am constrained to respond,” the Governor said in a post from the official handle of Tamil Nadu Raj Bhavan.

Late in the night, the Chief Minister questioned why the Governor, who said he sang the song with pride, did not intervene when it was rendered incompletely. He disagreed that the reference to ‘Dravida’ was inadvertent. On the Governor’s criticism over the “racist remark”, Mr Stalin said, “Governor, Tamil is our race. It is our lifeline. To safeguard the language, Tamils had allowed their lives to be consumed by flames. This land laid the foundation for the First Constitutional Amendment and bears the history of anti-Hindi imposition agitation. If the love for the mother tongue in this land is racism then it is indeed a pride for us!”

Earlier, sharing a video of the incomplete rendition of the State song, Mr. Stalin alleged this was the Governor’s “deliberate disrespect” to Tamil Nadu and its people and reiterated his demand to the Union government to recall the Governor. The Chief Minister questioned if the Governor would instruct for dropping the word ‘Dravida’ from the national anthem.

Amid opposition from Mr. Stalin and political party leaders, the Governor’s media adviser, Thiruganana Sambandam, through a social media post, distanced the Raj Bhavan from the controversy over the incomplete rendition of the State song, saying the Governor had nothing to do with it. Contending the troupe had inadvertently missed the line, he said the matter was immediately brought to the notice of the organisers and appropriate authorities asking them to look into it.

Mr. Ravi, however, said the Chief Minister knew it well that “I recite the full Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu at every function and do so with reverence, pride and precision.”

Prasar Bharati’s claim

Meanwhile, Prasar Bharati claimed the omission of the lyric “Thekkanamum Adhirsirandha Dravida Nal Thirunaadum...” was an inadvertent, “which happened due to a distraction.”

“We apologise for the inadvertent mistake. There was no intention from the singers to disrespect Tamizh or Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu. In this regard, we apologise for the inconvenience caused to the Governor of Tamil Nadu,” it added.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Stalin had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi objecting to combining of the Hindi month valedictory function and commemoration of Doordarshan, Chennai’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. “In a multilingual country like India, according special place to Hindi and celebrating Hindi month in non-Hindi speaking States is seen as an attempt to belittle other languages,” he said.

The Constitution “did not accord national language status to any language”, the Chief Minister pointed out, and underlined Hindi and English were being used only for official purposes such as legislation, judiciary and communication between the Union and State governments.

Published - October 18, 2024 08:20 pm IST