This is the headquarters of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority.
This building in Chennai’s Egmore is called the Thalamuthu Natarajan Building.
Thalamuthu Nadar and Natarajan were jailed in 1939 for taking part in anti-Hindi protests and died in police custody. Today, they’re remembered as martyrs of the Hindi resistance movement.
The imposition of Hindi has been resisted by Tamil Nadu for almost a century now. From mass protests in the 1930s to student-led agitations in the 1960s. and political battles even today.
Language isn’t just about communication—it shapes how we see the world and how the world sees us. That’s why it can be such a powerful political force.
And if you’re watching this from outside Tamil Nadu and wondering why the state has always pushed back against Hindi, let’s break it down.
And let’s go beyond politics—take a closer look at Tamil Nadu’s anti-Hindi agitations—
how they started
and how this fight for language and cultural identity continues to shape the state today.
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Back to our topic.
The anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu goes back to at least 1937, a decade before the formation of Independent India.
Back then, the first ever Congress ministry in the Madras Presidency, headed by C Rajagopalachari, decided to make Hindi a compulsory subject in schools.
The move set off a firestorm, especially among Tamil political parties and activists, who saw it as a direct attack on Tamil identity. Periyar E.V. Ramasamy’s Self-Respect Movement didn’t hold back—they launched a fierce resistance.
The protests were massive, and more than 1,100 people were arrested, including Periyar and CN Annadurai—who later founded the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or the DMK.
Eventually in February 1940, the order was withdrawn.
This three-year protest was the first agitation against Hindi imposition in the state.
Two young protesters, Thalamuthu and Natarajan, tragically died in prison. And they were the first martyrs of the movement. Fifty years later, Chief Minister Karunanidhi honored them by naming this building after them.
We need to understand that the movement was driven by a deep love for Tamil. Annadurai made this very clear several times in Parliament. He said, “I have got a language five thousand years old. If you drink the deep nectar of the Tamil classics, you will want only Tamil to be the National Language.”
In 1946, there was another attempt to reintroduce Hindi in the schools of the Madras Presidency. This time, Annadurai led the opposition on behalf of Periyar. The government once again backed down and the move was halted.
Periyar and Anna for many years demanded the creation of a separate Dravida Nadu—a country for the Dravidian people. They argued that the North, dominated by Hindi-speaking, Aryan, Brahminical groups, was exploiting the South economically. Periyar’s main argument was that the caste system would persist in India as followers of Manu would continue to be in charge.
The demand for secession gained momentum for a while, but the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 and other geopolitical events put an end to this movement.
But the DMK never shifted its focus from the primary issue—the imposition of Hindi.
The language issue also made its way into the debates of the Constituent Assembly, where members were discussing the draft Constitution. TT Krishnamachari, a Congress member, spoke strongly against making Hindi the common language of India.
In this debate, he famously said, “Sir, it is up to my friends in UP to have a whole-India; it is up to them to have a Hindi-India. The choice is theirs.”
After a lot of back-and-forth, the Constituent Assembly came to a compromise known as the Munshi-Ayyangar formula, named after two Assembly members, KM Munshi and Gopalswamy Ayyangar. The formula ensured no ‘national language.’ Instead, Hindi and English would serve as official languages for 15 years, with a Language Commission set up after five years to promote Hindi and phase out English.
One important anti-Hindi agitation was in 1953. The government sought to rename Kallakudi in Tamil Nadu after industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia who was from Rajasthan.
A young DMK leader, M. Karunanidhi, led a massive protest against the renaming. Demonstrators stormed the railway station, plastering over the ‘Dalmiapuram’ sign with ‘Kallakudi’. Karunanidhi and others lay on the tracks, marking Tamil Nadu’s first rail roko.
The protests escalated. Police resorted to lathi charge and eventually opened fire, injuring ten and killing two bystanders. Karunanidhi and others were jailed for five months. He then became a household name in the state.
Now, let’s fast forward to the 1960s, when the language issue resurfaced with a vengeance, especially with the introduction of the Official Languages Act.
The 15-year period for English to remain as an associate language was also about to end
DMK’s lone member in the Rajya Sabha, Annadurai strongly argued for English to remain an official language indefinitely.
He made three important points
Annadurai said people often ask him- “Why don’t you learn Hindi? Why should you be against any one language?”’
This is what he said. “We apprehend that there is a move to create a linguistic hegemony, or a Hindi imperialism in this country. That is not going to take place in the South, if I may say so, Bengal too.”
On the argument that Hindi is needed for national integration he said- “Please do not think that you can integrate the country only by language. Did you speak in Hindi to me asking me to support the Government of India against foreign aggression? No. Loyalty to the country is composed of various kinds of loyalties and loyalty to our language is not less in intensity.”
He also opposed the demand that Hindi should be made the official language because it was spoken by 42 per cent of the population. He pointed out that if this 42% were evenly distributed across India, the argument might hold merit. However, since Hindi speakers are largely concentrated in contiguous regions, it would give a lasting advantage to those areas while putting other regions at a permanent disadvantage.
Despite this opposition, the Congress pushed the Act through unchanged.
In 1963, the DMK launched a “direct action” protest against Hindi, which escalated quickly. It intensified after Annadurai’s arrest for allegedly planning to burn part of the Constitution. He was released months later but arrested again in 1965.
Two days later, two young DMK members died by self-immolation, sparking citywide clashes and forcing colleges to shut down temporarily. Tensions peaked on February 11 when police fired on protesters killing a teenager. To this day, January 25 is observed by the DMK and AIADMK in remembrance of those who died in the movement.
The protests, which began in Chennai and spread statewide, finally calmed after Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri assured that English would remain an associate language, helping defuse tensions.
The agitation’s impact was evident in the 1967 elections, where Congress lost its grip on the Madras Presidency. A key moment came when student leader P Sreenivasan defeated former Chief Minister K. Kamaraj in his hometown.
The DMK came to power and many of the student leaders who had played key roles in the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation went on to become important political figures in the years to come.
The agitation also had a lasting impact on language policy. It led to Tamil Nadu rejecting the Centre’s proposed Three-Language Policy in 1968 and instead firmly adopting a Two-Language Policy—Tamil and English.
Wait. We are not done yet.
Tamil Nadu’s fight for a language-based identity hasn’t just been about politics—it’s also played out through linguistic purity movements.
A major force in this was the Thanith Tamil Iyakkam meaning Independent Tamil Movement.
Two young men staged a hunger strike outside the Madras Radio station, protesting the use of the Sanskrit term “Akashavani” for broadcasts. They demanded a Tamil equivalent.
After the DMK came to power, it renamed Tamil Nadu’s radio stations “Tamil Vaanoli”.
Since the DMK split in 1972, giving rise to the AIADMK, Tamil Nadu has alternated between these two Dravidian parties, with national parties like Congress playing only a supporting role.
What’s especially interesting is that despite the AIADMK’s later alliance with the BJP, it has consistently stood its ground against Hindi imposition.
Now, let’s come back to the present.
The Union government, led by the BJP, has been visibly pushing for the promotion of Hindi.
In 2017, the Modi government sparked backlash by replacing English with Hindi on Tamil Nadu’s highway signs.
Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has argued that the state’s two-language policy is key to its strong education system, with high enrollment and low dropout rates.
Tensions have escalated again when the Modi government withholding over 2000 crores in education funds after Tamil Nadu rejected the new three-language formula put forward by the National Education Policy.
Those who are part of this movement insist this fight isn’t just about Hindi—it’s about protecting Tamil identity and resisting force. It also feels like a cultural imposition that is irrelevant to their daily lives and professional growth.
The linguistic differences between Hindi and Tamil is also a practical challenge.
Hindi, an Indo-Aryan language, is heavily influenced by Sanskrit, while Tamil, a Dravidian language, has a separate origin and structure. Everything from grammar and syntax to pronunciation is distinct. Hindi borrows heavily from Sanskrit, whereas Tamil has remained largely insulated from its influence.
For Tamil speakers, learning Hindi isn’t just about picking up new words—it means adapting to a completely different sentence structure and pronunciation.
Every language has the potential to bring people together. There are people in Tamil Nadu who do learn Hindi, and there are Hindi-speaking people in Tamil Nadu who learn Tamil. People pick up languages when they feel the need to, whether for work, travel, or culture. The question Tamil Nadu asks is simple: Why force people to learn a language when they don’t need it?
For suggestions & feedback write to pooja@thenewsminute.com
Produced by Megha Mukundan, edited by Nikhil Sekhar, research by Lakshmi Priya
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