Intensifying the language tussle with the Centre, the Tamil Nadu government replaced the Devanagari rupee symbol with a Tamil letter in its logo for the budget 2025-26, in an unprecedented move signalling its unrelenting stance against the three-language formula under the National Education Policy.
The move comes amidst a political firestorm over the issue after the Tamil Nadu government rejected the National Education Policy with Chief Minister MK Stalin accusing the Central government of trying to impose Hindi in the state under it and claimed that NEP was a “saffron policy” aimed at promoting and developing Hindi and not the nation.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has also asserted that Tamil Nadu would not tolerate ‘Hindi colonialism’ replacing British colonialism, while the Union government has accused the state government of being “dishonest” and “ruining the future of the students” in the state for politics.
The logo for the budget, released by the government on Thursday, carried ru, the first letter of the Tamil word Rubaai, which denotes the Indian currency in the vernacular language.
The logo also had the caption “everything for all”, indicating the ruling DMK’s assurance of an inclusive governance model.
The symbol change triggered a political slugfest, with the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders attacking the DMK, and the ruling party members asking if any rule barred such a depiction.
DMK MLA Ezhilan Naganathan justified the move and said there was nothing wrong with using the mother tongue.
Slamming the Stalin government’s move, BJP TN chief K Annamalai asked the chief minister how stupid he could be to do it.
“The DMK government’s State Budget for 2025-26 replaces the Rupee Symbol designed by a Tamilian, which was adopted by the whole of Bharat and incorporated into our currency. Thiru Udhay Kumar, who designed the symbol, is the son of a former DMK MLA. How stupid can you become, Thiru @mkstalin?” he said in a social media post.
He also shared the logo of the 2024-25 TN budget that had the Devanagari symbol.
Responding to Annamalai’s criticism, DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai said no law “opposed or stopped using Ru in Tamil.”
“Then why such anger,” he asked in a post on X.
