Chennai, Feb. 09 All Tamils should celebrate the first day of the month Thai as not only the Pongal Festival Day but also the Tamil New Year Day. Besides, the day should be celebrated with all pomp and gaiety attached to the Deepavali festival, Karunanidhi appealed to the people of the state. The Chief Minister was speaking at a function organised here by the Sanga Thamizh Peravai to felicitate him for announcing the first day of Thai month as the Tamil New Year Day.

MK clarified that the first day of Tamil month Thai had been made as the Tamil New Year Day, neither with a view to effacing the existing names of years in Sanskrit nor out of hatred towards them. "The move is to give importance to Mother Tamil while calculating the years and to redeem the honour of the language," he added.

He said the names of the 60 years which were in Sanskrit were held as Tamil years by a majority of the people in the state out of ignorance about the Tamil culture. Further, calculation of exact year of an individual would not be possible just with the existing 60-year-pattern followed at present. There would not be continuity in calculation.

However, Karunanidhi said there was no need for changing the names of the existing Tamil months as the words used to refer to them were mostly of Tamil origin.

He recalled his contribution to the introduction of a continuous calendar, in the form of Thiruvalluvar Year, for Tamils

Earlier, the Tamil scholars showered encomiums on the chief minister and pointed out that Karunanidhi had made three major contribution to the Tamil community: his success in obtaining classical language status for Tamil; his role in bringing out legislation making Tamil a compulsory language and medium of instruction in schools; and making the first day of Thai the Tamil New Year Day. This, they said, was the renaissance period of Tamil language.

Finance Minister K Anbazhagan, former vice chancellors V I Subrahmanyam, S Agathiyalingam, Avvai Natarajan, VC Kulandaisamy, Vooran Adiga, veteran archaeologist R Nagasamy, PWD Minister Durai Murugan and Jegatrakshagan, secretary of the Tamil Sanga Peravai, felicitated Karunanidhi.- Bureau Report