Tanittamil Iyakkam

Tanittamil Iyakkam

The Thanittamil Iyakkam (Tamil: தனித் தமிழ் இயக்கம்) (Pure Tamil Movement, Independent Tamil Movement) is a movement of linguistic purism in Tamil literature attempting to restore Tamil to its pure state, avoiding Sanskrit loanwords. It was notably initiated by the writings of Maraimalai Adigal and Paventhar Bharathidasan, G. Devaneya Pavanar and Pavalareru Perunchitthiranaar. propagated by the Thenmozhi literary magazine, founded by Pavalareru Perunchithiranar. V. G. Suryanarayana Sastri popularly known as "Parithimar Kalaignar", a Brahmin was also a 20th-century figure of the movement, who demanded, as early as 1902, classical language status for Tamil.

Tamil had been favoured by language policy since Indian independence. It had been used in high schools since 1938, and in university education from 1960. In 1956, the Indian National Congress party government passed a law instituting Tamil as the official language of the state, and in 1959 set up the Tamil Development and Research Council entrusted with producing Tamil school and college textbooks in the natural and human sciences, accounting, mathematics, etc. A series of children's encyclopedias in Tamil, "lucid commentaries" on Cankam poetry, and an "authentic history of the Tamil people" appeared in 1962-63. These measures, however, seemed insufficient to the proponents of "Pure Tamil", as expressed by Mohan Kumaramangalam in 1965, at the peak of the Anti-Hindi agitations,

"In practice, the ordinary man finds that the Tamil language is nowhere in the picture. In Madras city like any other metro, English dominates our life to an extraordinary extent. I think it will be no exaggeration to say that a person who earns very high can live for years in Madras without learning a word of Tamil, except for some servant inconvenience!"

Since the Congress government had also turned down a number of demands, such as the use of "Pure Tamil" rather than "Sanskritised Tamil" in schoolbooks, and resisting the name change from Madras to Tamil Nadu until 1969, concerned not to nurture separatist movements. This engendered resentment among the Tamil purists, expressed by Devaneya Pavanar in 1967:

"None of the Congress Ministers of Tamil Nadu was either a Tamil scholar or a Tamil lover. The Congress leaders of Tamil Nadu as betrayers of Tamil, cannot represent the State any more. Blind cannot lead the blind, much less the keen sighted. Moreover every political meeting, they will say "Jai Hind!". This Means, they are meant to rule only in broader(not specific) India."

In the elections of the same year, Congress suffered a resounding defeat, and was replaced by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government under C. N. Annadurai.