Opposition
From the beginning, the scheme attracted heavy opposition from the Dravidian movement led by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy. The Dravidar Kazhagam organised a conference in Erode protesting the scheme's introduction. The teachers' unions also opposed their move as they were not consulted before implementation. They also resented the increase in working hours without any increase in pay. The DMK seized the opportunity and started a campaign against the scheme. They dubbed the scheme as the Kula kalvi thittam (Hereditary/Caste Education Scheme) and as the Acharyar Education Scheme. The Dravidian movement viewed the scheme as an attempt to preserve and perpetuate caste based discrimination through official means. They used Rajaji's notions about caste and village craftsmen to depict the scheme as a "Brahminist conspiracy". Rajaji had earlier expressed his opinion about castes and crafts as:
| “ | The food is grown, the cloth is woven, the sheep are shorn, the shoes are stitched, the scavenging is done, the cartwheels and the ploughs are built and repaired because, thank God, the respective castes are still there and the homes are trade schools as well and the parents are masters as well, to whom the children are automatically apprenticed. | ” |
After the scheme was announced, Rajaji gave a speech to the washermen at the Adyar riverbank. In it he referred to Kuladharma, the social obligation of each clan or caste. The opposition used such incidents to lend credence to their "casteist motive" accusation. Rajaji and his education minister MV Krishna Rao responded with a counter campaign in the scheme's defense. They gave speeches and made broadcasts in the All India Radio explaining their position. The month of June 1953 saw aggressive propaganda efforts by both the proponents and opponents of the scheme. On 13 July 1953, the DMK executive committee met and decided to conduct a marial (blockade) agitation outside the Chief Minister's residence. EVK Sampath was nominated to lead the agitation. This agitation was part of a three pronged attack on the Government's policies by the DMK. On 14 July 1953, a possession led by Satyavani Muthu was organised to protest the scheme. Its destination was Rajaji's official residence at Bazullah road, T. Nagar. It was stopped by the police as it was unlicensed. The next day (15 July 1953) the confrontation heated up with the Government introducing a motion in the Legislative Assembly for implementing the scheme from the academic year 1953-54. On the same day another DMK procession was stopped before it could reach T Nagar. In the next fifteen days as many as twenty such processions were attempted by the DMK.
Read more about this topic: Hereditary Education Policy
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and ... powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The ancient bitter opposition to improved methods [of production] on the ancient theory that it more than temporarily deprives men of employment ... has no place in the gospel of American progress.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)