Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Anbazhagan calls for urgent action to help Sri Lankan Tamils

CHENNAI: Urgent action needs to be taken to help out the Sri Lankan Tamils, who have been caught in the conflict, Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan said on Sunday.

The Tamils everywhere had to transcend their differences and come together to fight for the issues that concerned all Tamils. Only with a deep-rooted sense of the Tamil identity could Tamil Nadu continue to rise, he said, speaking at the 110th birth anniversary celebration of K.A.P. Viswanathan, first secretary of the Justice Party, organised by the K.A.P. Viswanathan Memorial Trust here.

Mr. Anbazhagan said Mr. Viswanathan had stressed the importance of a unifying Tamil identity. Referring to an incident when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister, he said that when representatives of different States were rendering songs before the Prime Minister, only the Tamil Nadu representative sang in Telugu.

This, he said, demonstrated how weak the Tamil identity had been. Mr. Anbazhagan lauded Viswanathan for being one of the prime forces behind the Tamil Isai Iyakkam, as he understood the need for the arts to stress the Tamil identity. Viswanathan, a Tamil scholar, had the capacity to take complex thoughts to the public through lucid speech and writing.

He was also a great proponent of Siddha medicine.

A biopic on Viswanathan, directed by S.P. Muthraman and produced by V.G.P., was released. An audio CD containing Viswanathan’s speech on Thirukkural and the new edition of a book on his works in Tamil were also released.

A website dedicated to Mr. Viswanathan would soon be launched, a spokesperson of the trust said.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu