Albisteak
World Tamil Congress sets future agenda for the ancient language
As the monsoon hit the southern segment of the south Asian subcontinent in June, Coimbatore looked different. Humming along with the sounds of a festival of literature, culture and art and beaming with the presence of nearly 3,000 delegates from 50 countries, the Tamil Nadu city known throughout Asia as a hub of India's booming high tech industry, hosted the World Classical Tamil Conference (WCTC), a full-fledged showcase of the specific uniqueness of the Tamil language.
This was the first international meeting of such scale after the Union Government of India accorded Tamil, which has the oldest literature among living languages, the status of "classical language" in 2004. The conference turned into a display of Tamil cultural and artistic affirmation underscored by the presence of diverse personalities ranging from celebrities of Bollywood fame to academics of sterling intellectual reputation.
Oscar winner A R Rahman's music and film maker Rajiv Menon's visual effects travelled across the city on massive screens mounted on trucks. Within the Conference walls an academic homage to Asko Parpola a Finnish researcher of Dravidian languages, who considers Old Tamil to be a linguistic route to unveil the mysteries of the Indus inscriptions, kick started this protean cultural fair, which went on to discussing topics such as the impact of Dalit (formerly known as "untouchables" in the Hindu caste system) writers or women and of modern existentialism on Tamil literature.
The WCTC also highlighted the need to protect the roots of indigenous story-telling and poetic traditions. At the same time the conference underscored the opportunity to enhance the spread of the various cultural and artistic Tamil venues in order to articulate present day sensibilities in an era of globalization in which life patterns transcend traditional social, economic, caste and religious boundaries.
But the WCTC also offered some grist for the political mill. Local critics noted that the conference cost the whopping equivalent of over 68 million Euros and was organized a little over a year after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated in Sri Lanka. A timing these critics say is not a coincidence as the international conference was hatched at a point in time in which local Tamil Nadu opposition parties have taken on State Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi for not doing enough to save the Sri Lankan Tamil population after the war ended in the neighboring island country. These observers have pointed out that the main theme of the conference was more to establish the ruling party chief as the champion of the Tamil cause and the Tamil language ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly elections scheduled for the near future.
Heartfelt pride for Tamil and a pinch of political opportunism have made the World Tamil Conference a means for projecting the past and present glories of a language, which predates Sanskrit, and for launching new objectives both in the context of India and the globalized world. Chief Minister M Karunanidhi demanded that Tamil be made an official language of the Union Government in Delhi and of the Madras High Court. The State Government Chief Minister also stated that job priorities in Tamil Nadu should be given to people who know Tamil.
Robert Scarcia
Journalist
