TO ENSURE ANNA's DREAM COME TRUE
The
Guinness book of Records says " that the funeral of Anna was attended by
the largest number of people in the world " Panruti S.Ramachandran in his
preface to the book "Anna Speaks- at the Rajya Sabha 1962-66" writes
' The century had witnessed only 3 funerals comparable to anywhere like that of
Anna's. The first one was that of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhara Tilak at Bombay in 1920, the second was that of Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi in 1948 and the third was that of Jawaharlal Nehru
in Delhi in
1964". He also writes ' another striking feature of the entire funeral
procession was the predominance of ordinary people like sweepers, scavengers,
slum dwellers and hut dwellers'. In that see of humanity I braved my way where
the pit to bury Anna was dug and took handful of that sand which for two
decades I preserved till my family members threw it away without knowing its
sentimental value. I took the oath not to eat fish for a year to mourn Anna's
demise. I was so fond of fish that I cannot remain without eating it. Apart
from my personal feelings which by sheer luck I am recording here, millions
felt their lives have lost its meaning in a land without Anna. But for Anna,
our motherland would not have been named as Tamil Nadu.
The
struggle for naming of Tamil Nadu is yet to be written as separate book. Let me
reproduce few lines “Tamil Nadu was once named after its capital city,
Madras.The situation was a complicated one. Even Congressmen spoke of Tamil
Nadu within the state, reserving Madras
State for letters and
speeches meant for external consumption. To appease the Tamil people they even
changed the name of Aranmore
Palace in Ooty to
Tamizhagam. But they were not willing to set right this anomaly by making a
Constitutional amendment. It was Thiru.Bhupesh Gupta of the Communist party who
took the initiative in 1961 by introducing a private members bill to amend the
first schedule entry number 7 of the Constitution. The purpose of the Bill was
to call the Madras
State by its rightful
name Tamil Nadu in conformity with the historical, linguistic and cultural
considerations. Anna's impassionate defense of this bill will be long
remembered for its sincere emotion and clear cut reasoning.
The
adamant Center refused to yield and opposed the private member's motion to call
"Madras State " by its rightful name Tamil
Nadu. With its majority the Congress party defeated the Bill, but the change
could not be resisted for long. Four years later in 1967 when the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam was elected to power in Madras State ,
Anna as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu achieved his objective with unanimous backing
of both Houses of the State legislature. Today there is no Madras State ,
only Tamil Nadu" Panruti Ramachandran's note in the book mentions.
But
we must also remember Sangaralinganaar who fasted to death for this cause in
spite of being a Congressman."Thamizh Naadu" should not be misspelt
as Tamil Nadu. Is it not our duty to set this right, while saluting all who
gave up their lives for the cause of Tamil Nadu.
N.Nandhivarman
General Secretary Dravida Peravai
No comments:
Post a Comment