Decades of language-centric politics in Tamil Nadu were made sensitive and emotional, often potent enough to dictate the politics of the state. To maintain this emotional momentum, Chief Minister Stalin once again brought up the NEP discussion while launching a book titled Rogue Elephant Called the National Education Policy, authored by Tamil Nadu Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, in Chennai on May 17.
The event became yet another exercise in rhetoric, filled with repeated falsehoods about the NEP in the state. Rather than offering any reasonable objective understanding or analysis, it simply ended up calling the policy anti–Tamil Nadu and vowed to build a Dravida Nadu, not a Saffron Desh.
This event, attended by retired Supreme Court judge V. Gopala Gowda, Congress MP Digvijay Singh, Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin, former ISRO scientist Mylswamy Annadurai, among others, featured speeches denouncing the NEP.
CM Stalin said, “The NEP will undermine reservation, destroy India’s pluralistic culture, and help impose a unitary ‘Sanskritised’ national identity.”
He accused the Modi government of seeking to saffronise everything, starting with education. The only solution to stop the saffronisation of education in the country, Stalin said, “is to bring education back to the State List of the Constitution from the Concurrent List. My Dravidian model of governance will continue to wield the sword against NEP. Our fight is critical because the NEP will undermine reservation. Only as long as reservation exists will oppressed and backward communities have access to higher education. The NEP will destroy our pluralistic culture, and BJP’s sole aim is to dismantle India’s unity and impose a unitary Sanskritised national identity.”
Recalling Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s recent statement that NEP 2020 will promote Sanskrit, Stalin said, “The Home Minister’s speech has only confirmed what we have been warning about for the past several years. This is an attempt to destroy languages like Tamil. We must intensify our struggle to bring back education to the State List.”
சென்னை, அண்ணா நூற்றாண்டு நூலகத்தில் நடைபெற்ற மாண்புமிகு அமைச்சர் திரு. @Anbil_Mahesh அவர்கள் எழுதிய "தேசிய கல்விக் கொள்கை – 2020 எனும் மதயானை" நூலினை மாண்புமிகு முதலமைச்சர் திரு. @mkstalin அவர்கள் வெளியிட்டார். pic.twitter.com/91Y57BWdgJ
— CMOTamilNadu (@CMOTamilnadu) May 17, 2025
On the Centre withholding Rs. 2,152 crore under Samagra Shiksha to TN for not implementing NEP and not accepting the three-language formula, CM Stalin said, “The funds belong to students and teachers, and they were stopped over petty politics by the Union government. PM SHRI schools are not acceptable — it goes fundamentally against the rights of State governments. The TN government will certainly move the Supreme Court against the injustice. Just as we have secured landmark judgments protecting State’s rights, I am confident we will win this case too. We are here to hold the spear against you. The RSS has been using education to poison and influence the minds of youngsters. NEP violates a number of articles in the Constitution. We are sure Congress and other like-minded parties will join us in the fight to protect democracy and to stop the ‘rogue elephant’ in its tracks.”
His statement comes at a time when Tamil Nadu is grappling with a series of pressing issues such as TASMAC-related scams, deteriorating law and order, crimes against women and children, and unfulfilled election-related freebies.
Justice Gopal Gowda said, “The NEP is contrary to the previous education policies and is opposed to Constitutional values and the social justice concept. Opposition to NEP is not a blind one. NEP talks about public-private partnership and autonomy, which are coded words to replace public-funded education. Reservation policies will be weakened and entry to good educational institutions will depend more on fees. So, it is not a reform, but regression.”
Continuing his ire against the NEP and BJP government led by Modi at the Centre, Gowda said, “Mythology is being presented as history, pseudo-science is entering science textbooks. Ancient Hindu texts are glorified while Buddhist, Islamic, Christian and tribal texts are avoided. It is ideological indoctrination which we will not permit to happen in this country. NEP ignores the federal features of India’s Constitution by ignoring the role of State governments. Governors can’t bulldoze the Legislature. People are supreme and sovereign in democracy. The Governors have been taught good lessons by the Supreme Court.”
Critics wonder “how DMK could find such brains that alien with its ideologies and stand. Thank God he retired. It is the fault of collegiums that needed to be abolished otherwise we would have such urban naxals, atheists, pseudo-secular ones and Hindi-phobic, against Bharat’s rich history, culture.” It is a clever move to trump its stand, issues stated earlier here.
More or less repeating what Gowda made in his speech, CM Stalin said, “This is Dravidian nation. No place for Saffron state here. We will not accept NEP at any cost and certainly. Education is the tool for our development. Knowledge is our weapon.”
#BREAKING | இது காவி நாடல்ல; திராவிட நாடு – முதல்வர் ஸ்டாலின்#MKStalin | #NEP | #AnbilMaheshPoyyamozhi | #NationalEducationPolicy2020Madhayaanai | #TheRogueElephant pic.twitter.com/MnF7RxRo91
— PttvOnlinenews (@PttvNewsX) May 17, 2025
As the state assembly polls are fast nearing, the DMK has picked up issues that would sentimentally evince support from the public and put the Central government in a bind, accelerating its move to win the masses by freebies, assurance to implement unfulfilled poll promises despite TN turning into red. Imaginary Delimitation, NEP, exemption from NEET for TN, opposing Centre seeking Presidential reference, caste-based census, withholding funds due to states etc. It has also been raking up, almost given up by his father and Anna, namely the autonomous or separate state for Tamils.
Former Telangana Governor and former chief TN BJP Dr. Tamilsai Soundararajan told media in Chennai on May 18, “A misleading narrative about the NEP is being propagated in Tamil Nadu. A wrong perception is being spread about the NEP. DMK only claims to develop Tamil language. However, only eight students, out of nearly eight lakh students who wrote the X Standard public examinations, scored Centum in Tamil. DMK is talking about vacancies of Tamil teachers in Kendriya Vidyalaya schools. Nine students of Kallar Reclamation Higher Secondary School (at Thummakundu, a school in Usilampatti in Madurai district, which falls under the ambit of the De-notified Communities Welfare Department), failed to clear the Tamil language subject. The school had been without a Tamil teacher for more than a year. When the Tamil Nadu government boasts about its contribution to the Tamil language, why could it not even appoint a teacher for the Tamil subject?
The DMK leaders have been talking about bringing back education from the Concurrent to the State List. But what steps did the DMK government take when it was part of the UPA coalition government at the Centre for nearly 18 years?,” she added.
Parents demand, “Nine students who had failed due to the misadministration of the department and the government should be given a chance, or necessary steps should be taken to provide them special training for clearing the subject at least in their next attempt.”
Before elections, TN would witness atheists visiting temples, participating in community feasts, festivals, greeting people on their festivals, doing fire walks — all appeasements only to get votes and to prove they are not anti-Hindi and against Sanatana Dharma. DY CM Udhayanidhi Stalin attended a community feast function to prove the same.
-Normal day: Eradicate Sanatana Dharma.
-Election time: Temple tourism.
Do these people think Hindus are fools? pic.twitter.com/ZBW8tBTTat
— Tulla Veerender Goud (@TVG_BJP) May 18, 2025
Critics accuse the Centre of not taking action against the DMK but giving it a long rope with some hidden objectives. Many of the DMK ministers are facing corruption charges, court cases, ED raids. The cases do not move beyond raids and never see their logical ends. This emboldened them to continue their acts and, as a diversionary politics, accuse the Modi government of everything — even for their failures and non-fulfilment of their poll promises.
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