Dravidianist Movement

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http://www.dailypioneer.com/150613/The-Peb...nd-the-Pea.html

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Until last year, the Tamils used to celebrate their New Year Day on 14 April. That day usually falls on the first day of Chitrai which used to be the first month of the Tamil calendar. Chitrai has now been unceremoniously pushed from its prime position to the third spot. For no fault of hers, she has lost her position to another Tamil month, Thai, thanks to Karunanidhi. At his behest, The Tamil Nadu Assembly passed last year a fiat which decreed that the Tamil New Year day would henceforth be shifted to 14 January — the first day of the month of Thai, which used to be the tenth month of the Tamil Calendar. Presumably, from now onwards, the tenth month will become the first month and the original first month will have to be satisfied with the third position.

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In the year 1921, a few Tamil scholars belonging to a movement called ‘The Pure Tamil Movement’, which sought to detoxify Tamils of the Aryan poison, affirmed that it would be a wanton insult to the hoary Tamil Culture, if the Tamils continued to accept the first of Chitrai as the beginning of their New Year. The position, according to them, rightly belonged to the first of Thai, the day of Pongal, the harvest festival of the Tamils. There was no logic in their contention as both Chitrai and Thai are months in a calendar whose origin can be traced back to the Hindu religious, and hence non-Tamil, sources. But logic and ‘The Pure Tamil Movement’ were not exactly coeval. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->