Udhayanidhi Accuses Centre of Favouring Sanskrit Over Tamil, BJP Hits Back Strongly

Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin ignited a fierce linguistic and political storm on Friday when he publicly branded Sanskrit “a dead language” during a book release function in Chennai, accusing the Union government of gross neglect towards Tamil while showering disproportionate funds on a language he claimed has no living relevance.

Speaking to a gathering of writers and cultural enthusiasts, the DMK leader contrasted the paltry Rs 150 crore allocated for Tamil development schemes with the Rs 2,400 crore reportedly earmarked for Sanskrit promotion, questioning why a language “nobody speaks in daily life” continues to receive massive financial backing from the Centre. He repeated the phrase “dead language” multiple times, framing it as evidence of the BJP-led government’s alleged bias against Dravidian languages and culture.

The Bharatiya Janata Party reacted with swift and sharp condemnation, with Tamil Nadu BJP president and former Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan asserting that no individual, regardless of political stature, possesses the moral authority to declare any Indian language dead, particularly Sanskrit, which remains vibrantly alive in Vedic chants, temple rituals, classical music, yoga traditions, and academic scholarship across the nation and beyond.

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Soundararajan accused the DMK of perpetuating a divisive ideological agenda that seeks to artificially elevate one language by systematically denigrating another, warning that such provocative statements from a sitting Deputy Chief Minister erode the spirit of linguistic harmony enshrined in the Constitution and risk inflaming unnecessary cultural tensions in a multi-lingual country.

She further emphasised that classical Tamil itself bears proud testimony to centuries of linguistic exchange by incorporating thousands of Sanskrit-derived words and concepts, describing this historical openness as proof of Tamil’s strength and maturity rather than weakness, and called upon all political leaders to champion India’s rich linguistic diversity instead of weaponising language for narrow electoral purposes.

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