The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Karunanidhi recalls anti-Hindi agitation days

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 08, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Karunanidhi recalls anti-Hindi agitation days

Special Correspondent

Elaborates on the difficulties faced by newsmen in the early days of newspapers in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi chose the function to inaugurate the Press Photographers Association to go down memory lane and to describe the difficulties faced by newsmen in the early days of newspapers in Tamil Nadu.

At the height of the anti-Hindi agitation in 1937-38, in which he actively participated, many were arrested and jailed each day. Periyar (E.V. Ramasamy Naicker, whom many Dravidan leaders of Mr. Karunanidhi's generation consider their teacher) ran two newspapers then, `Kudiarasu' and `Viduthalai.' They carried pictures and names of those arrested in Chennai as part of the agitation.

But on some days the pictures were not readily available.

On those occasions, the editor used to seek Periyar's direction on what needed to be done. "Periyar used to say," Mr. Karunanidhi explained,

"Don't you have the block from yesterday? Rub it a bit and print it. The faces will not be clear."

Another occasion; another publication. The picture of an advocate from Mylapore was published for an obituary column on Soundarapandia Nadar in the weekly, Dravidan.

The picture was procured by its Editor, N.V.Natarajan, from another newspaper, Nam Naadu.

The Editor of that paper had lent the picture, confident that it was Nadar's.

He said Murasoli, the paper he founded in 1942, was the first he picked up in the morning to read.

He did not pick it up because it was the party organ, but to check how many mistakes had appeared that day.

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