Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Monday said that educational institutions should treat every child as their own as they impart education to them, and those institutions that act otherwise would be punished.
His reference was to the incident in Kallakurichi district in which a Class 12 student allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the third floor of her hostel building in a private residential school.
Delivering a virtual speech in the “Tamil Nadu Day” celebrations in Kalaivanar Arangam, he said that while his government was working towards ‘Everything for All’ some regrettable incidents like the violence in Kallakurichi had erupted and added that violence was against development.
Stalin said that a peaceful Tamil Nadu is the need of the hour and said that strong action would be taken against the perpetrators of violence. He said that the important reasons behind the development of Tamil Nadu was the linguistic affinity, and policy for state autonomy.
He said that the people of the state should not give up any of these above ideals for anything. The Chief Minister said that identifying oneself as a Tamil does not mean that one is against those who speak other languages and added that states’ autonomy did not pose a danger to India’s integration.
“Identities such as Tamil, Tamilian, and Tamil Nadu are not parochial,” he said, adding that his language, his community, and his state should find eminence in this vast country.
“Likewise other languages, other communities, and other states should find their eminence.”
The Chief Minister said that if a political movement like the DMK was not born and had not come to power in the state, it would not have been named Tamil Nadu and would have remained like some ‘Madras Pradesh’ just like Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and the like without any unique identity.
–IANS