Will DMK Minister Anbil Mahesh's new book set fresh tone for Tamil Nadu's opposition against NEP?

In an attempt to decode Tamil Nadu’s resistance to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has written a book in Tamil titled  ‘NEP Ennum Madhayaanai’ (NEP: A Rogue Elephant).

 

The book will be released by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, while Congress MP Digvijaya Singh will receive the first copy. Former Supreme Court judge Justice V. Gopala Gowda and former ISRO director Dr Mylswamy Annadurai will also take part in the event. The book aims to explain the reasons for Tamil Nadu's opposition to NEP 2020. Running to 150 pages, the book is expected to recall Tamil Nadu’s fight against Hindi imposition.

 

“The union government is persistently trying to impose the National Education Policy, which is fundamentally rooted in Sanskrit. Recognising the serious threats this policy poses to teachers, students and parents, the chief minister has been firmly opposing it and has declared that it cannot be accepted under any circumstances,” Anbil Mahesh had posted on X, a few days before. 

 

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s remarks on the three-language policy, NEP 2020, and the Centre’s resolve to withhold the funds to the state’s which do not implement NEP seems to have come out in the book. Stung by the Centre’s action to withhold the Rs. 2,512 crore due to the state under the Samara Shiksha Abhiyan, Tamil Nadu will renew its attack on the Centre and the NEP through the book written by Mahesh.

 

“I will say that it is not NEP 2020, it is RSS 2020. I will straight away condemn the Union government as there is no scientific approach in implementing a new policy. If you go through the NEP 2020 book, you will see that they are talking a lot about Sanskrit, for which they have allotted Rs.1,488 crore as language development funds. For other Dravidian languages, together for Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada, they have allotted a very meagre amount. They are giving more focus on building infrastructure for Hindi and Sanskrit. So we are insisting on our mother tongue,” Mahesh told in an interview to THE WEEK earlier. 

 

The book, which is published in both Tamil and English by Anbil Publications, is expected to set the tone for the next round of Tamil Nadu’s fight against NEP and Hindi imposition.

India