Tanittamil Iyakkam
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The Tanittamil Iyakkam (Pure Tamil Movement, Only Tamil Movement) is a movement of linguistic purism in Tamil literature attempting to emulate the "unadulterated Tamil language" of the Sangam period, avoiding Sanskrit, Farsi and English loanwords. It was notably initiated by the writings of G. Devaneya Pavanar and Maraimalai Adigal, propagated by the Thenmozhi literary magazine, founded by Pavalareru Perunchithiranar.
The movement is associated with national mysticist claims of Tamil origins from a sunken continent Kumari Kandam.
Tamil had been favoured by language policy since Indian independence. It had been used in high schools since 1938, and in university education from 1960. In 1956, the Congress government passed a law instituting Tamil as the official language of the state, and in 1959 set up the Tamil Development and Research Council entrusted with producing Tamil school and college textbooks in the natural and human sciences, accounting, mathematics, etc. A series of children's encyclopedias in Tamil, "lucid commentaries" on Cankam poetry, and an "authentic history of the Tamil people" appeared in 1962-63. These measures, however, seemed insufficient to the proponents of "Pure Tamil", as expressed by Mohan Kumaramangalam in 1965, at the peak of the Anti-Hindi agitations,
- "In practice, the ordinary man finds that the Tamil language is nowhere in the picture. [...] In Madras city, English dominates our life to an extraordinary extent.[...] I think it will be no exaggeration to say that a person can live for years in Madras without learning a word of Tamil, except for some servant inconvenience!"
Since the Congress government had also turned down a number of demands, such as the use of "Pure Tamil" rather than "Sanskritised Tamil" in schoolbooks, and resisting the name change from Madras to Tamil Nadu until 1969, concerned not to nurture separatist movements. This engendered resentment among the Tamil purists, expressed by Devaneya Pavanar in 1967:
- "None of the Congress Ministers of Tamil Nad was either a Tamil scholar or a Tamil lover. The Congress leaders of Tamil Nad as betrayers of Tamil, cannot represent the State any more. Blind cannot lead the blind, much less the keen sighted."
In the elections of the same year, Congress suffered a resounding defeat, and was replaced by the DMK government under C. N. Annadurai.
[edit] References
- Sumathi Ramaswamy, Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970, Studies on the History of Society and Culture , No 29, University of California Press (1997), ISBN 978-0520208056.[1]
- Christians and Missionaries in India: Cross-Cultural Communication Since 1500 : With Special Reference to Caste, Conversion, and Colonialism, Studies in the History of Christian Missions, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (2003), ISBN 978-0802839565, p. 381.
