Events Leading Up To 26 January
As 26 January 1965 approached, the anti-Hindi agitation in Madras State grew in numbers and urgency. The Tamil Nadu Students Anti Hindi Agitation Council was formed in January as an umbrella student organisation to coordinate the anti-Hindi efforts. The office bearers of the council were student union leaders from all over Madras State including P. Seenivasan, K. Kalimuthu, Na. Kamarasan, Seyaprakasam, Ravichandran, Tiruppur. S. Duraiswamy, Sedapatti Muthaiah, Durai Murugan, K. Raja Mohammad, Navalavan, M. Natarajan and L. Ganesan. Explaining the anxiety of the students, The Indian Express noted in its editorial on 6 February 1965:
It was inevitable that the Madras students should have taken the lead in opposing the elevation of Hindi. After all a decision whether Hindi or English is to be the official language of the country affects them much more than any other section of the population. It is the students of the South who stand to lose most, when Hindi alone becomes the official language.
Several student conferences (sponsored by industrialists like G. D. Naidu and Karumuttu Thiagarajan Chettiar) were organised throughout the state to protest against Hindi imposition. On 17 January, the Madras State Anti-Hindi Conference was convened in Trichy. Participants included Rajaji (Swatantara Party), V. R. Nedunchezhiyan (DMK), P. T. Rajan (Justice Party), G. D. Naidu, Karumuthu Thyagaraja Chettiar, S. P. Adithan (We Tamils Party), Muhammad Ismail (Muslim League) and 700 other delegates from Madras, Maharashtra, Kerala and Mysore. They called for the indefinite suspension of Part XVII of the constitution. In the Conference Rajaji declared that the Part XVII should "be heaved and thrown into the Arabian Sea." The Home and Information & Broadcasting ministries of the central government (headed by Nanda and Indira Gandhi respectively) upped the ante and issued circulars for replacing English with Hindi from 26 January. On 16 January, Annadurai announced that 26 January (also the Republic Day of India) would be observed as a day of mourning. He wrote to Shastri asking for the language transition to be postponed by a week so that Tamils could celebrate Republic Day with the rest of the country. Shastri refused and the stage was set for the confrontation.
Read more about this topic: Madras Anti-Hindi Agitation Of 1965
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