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Chennai: Compared to other States in the country Tamil Nadu has the largest number of linguistic minorities accounting to nearly 40% but they find themselves in strange predicament in not being able to pursue their mother tongue in schools due to the two-language formula of the TN government which introduced the Tamil Learning Act in 2006, eliminating all other languages from the school syllabus.

“Fortunately for us, the First Bench of the Madras High Court is fully convinced about the unfair action of the TN Government and gave the linguistic minorities relief for 3 consecutive years - 2016, 2017 & 2018, against compulsory Tamil,” claims All India Telugu Federation (AITF) president Dr. C. M. K. Reddy. In the recent judgment on Feb. 27, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court had stated that this Act was totally against the fundamental rights of linguistic minorities stipulated under the Article 30 of our Constitution and needs to be reviewed, he added. Accordingly the matter was referred to a larger Bench, to decide the Constitutional validity of the Act, Dr. Reddy claimed and said the minorities in the State have pitched their hopes on the judiciary to learn their mother tongue.

Under the prevailing two-language formula, languages such as Telugu, Urdu, Malayalam, Kannada, Rajastani, Sourashtra, Sanskrit, Arabic, Hindi etc. were eliminated from the school syllabus. “Without proper implementation of the provisions of the Act, all of a sudden in 2016, the minority students were asked to write Tamil in 10th std,” Dr. Reddy added.

Minorities delegation calls on Chandrababu Naidu:

Aiming to find a lasting solution to their problem, a delegation under Prof C. M. K. Reddy, and LIMFOT, called on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on March 10 at Amaravathi (Vijayawada) and he was said to have assured the delegation to initiate immediate steps to protect Telugu in TN, since the AP government is teaching Tamil as part of school syllabus. Mr. Naidu nominated a senior IAS officer to expeditiously follow up the matter.

Establishing a Cultural Centre for Telugus in Chennai and creation of a Telugu Academy in TN on par with the Academy for Muslims were among the other subjects discussed with Mr Chandrababu Naidu.