New Delhi, May 08: A parliamentary delegation of DMK, PMK and MDMK, constituents of ruling NDA, today met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and urged him to declare Tamil an official and a classical language of the country.
The delegation, led by senior DMK leader and Union
Environment Minister T R Baalu, said in a memorandum handed
over to the Prime Minister that though the people of Tamil
Nadu have been demanding for long that Tamil be declared a
classical and an official language, successive governments at
the Centre had paid little heed to the demand.
"Countries like Singapore, Sri Lanka and Malaysia have
accepted Tamil as the language of the government. Nurturing
other languages is not sowing the seeds of the disunity.
Rather, it binds the government and the people," they said.
"If we have to understand Europe through language, it is
necessary to know Greek, Latin and Hebrew. Similarly, to
comprehend India in all its literary and cultural traditions,
knowledge of Tamil and Sanskrit is an absolute necessity. All
the Indian languages are off-springs of these two ancient
languages", they said demanding that 2003 be declared as
"Tamil language year".
Bureau Report
