CHENNAI: NTK chief coordinator Seeman on Wednesday condemned Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Maria Wilson over his remarks on Tamil and love, accusing him of insulting the Tamil language while attempting to justify his difficulty in pronouncing Tamil words during the presentation of the State Budget.
In a statement, Seeman said the Minister had struggled to pronounce Tamil words clearly while reading the Budget and had also made errors while reading out figures. When MLA Rajendran pointed out the mistakes during the discussion on the demands for grants and urged the Minister to correct them, Wilson’s response and body language reflected “arrogance”, Seeman alleged.
Seeman said accepting a mistake and taking steps to correct it was a sign of political maturity. Instead, he accused the Minister of refusing to correct himself and responding with what he described as the “arrogance of power”.
Questioning Wilson’s remarks that he was born a Christian and that his faith had taught him love, while Tamil had not, Seeman said the Minister had every right to speak about his religious beliefs but had no right to claim that Tamil did not teach love.
Seeman also referred to the contributions of Christian missionaries such as G U Pope and Veeramamunivar to Tamil language and literature. Their contributions demonstrated that Christianity and Tamil were not contradictory and that several Christian scholars had devoted themselves to the language, he said.
Seeman accused the Minister of unnecessarily bringing religion into the issue and said a person’s mother tongue and linguistic identity should not be confused with their religion.
He urged Wilson to apologise in the Tamil Nadu Assembly for what he described as insulting the Tamil language and Tamil identity.
“Tamil is the mother of boundless love and the very embodiment of compassion. Describing Tamil as a language that does not teach love is an insult to Tamil and the Tamil national identity,” Seeman said.