CHENNAI: Chief Minister MK Stalin launched seven books from the 'Dravidian Archive,' prepared under the aegis of Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation (TNTBESC), at the Secretariat on Wednesday.
The seven books cover a range of topics, tracing the history of the Dravidian movement.
"Works for the Dravidian repository have been ongoing for the past three years with a team of researchers on the ideology and creative resources of the Dravidian movement," stated the official press note.
The first phase is planned as 13 collections; the CM released seven collections on Wednesday: History of Justice Party, collection of Thanthai Periyar School of Thought, collection of Arignar Anna School of Thought, collection of Dravidian Movement and Women Thinkers, Dravidian Movement and Socio-Cultural and Economic Changes, and collections of Dravidian Movement short stories-2.
The project aims to shed more light on how the term 'Dravidian' has been used in anthropology, linguistics, history, and cultural studies for years to refer to a people, language family, and cultural group living in South Asia.
The note further stated, "In the field of knowledge, the word Kalanjiyam means a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special to a particular field or discipline. 'Dravidic Kalanjiyam' is a collection of knowledge about Dravidian ideology, a collection of works of the Dravidian movement, and a collection of studies on Dravidianism."