The Central Government on Tuesday, gave into the demand of AIADMK General Secretary Sasikala Natarajan and changed the status of Pongal holiday from restricted to compulsory for the Central Government employees of Tamil Nadu.
This comes just a day after the Central Government changed the status of the Pongal holidays from compulsory to restricted, following which, Sasikala expressed disappointment over and urged the Centre to review the decision.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam had also asked the Centre to add Pongal in the compulsory list of holidays. After Jallikkattu, the bull taming sport held during Pongal (annual harvest festival), the festival itself has become a bone of contention between Tamil Nadu and the Centre. The seriousness of the issue could be understood from the fact that VK Sasikala, the general secretary of the ruling AIADMK, herself has taken the cudgels on behalf of the people of the State asking the Centre to declare Pongal as a compulsory holiday.
“The decision comes as a big shock that Pongal festival, which was a compulsory holiday for the central Government employees in Tamil Nadu, has been made restricted holiday. It is a cultural festival being celebrated irrrspective of caste, creed and religions and it is the responsibility of the Centre to provide a holiday for the familes to celebrate,” Sasikala had said.
She asked the Centre to realise and accept the rights and feelings of Tamils and give compulsory holiday for Pongal which is on January14.
MK Stalin, the DMK working president , came down strongly on the move by the Centre and alleged it as part of the communal policy being pursued by the BJP-led union Government. “It raises a big question over the secular ethos with the Centre already attempting to impose Hindi and Sanskrit upon the mother tongues of all the States from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and by trying to drive communal principles through the New Education Policy. The removal of Pongal from the list of compulsory holidays list is nothing but a culmination of this,” said Stalin.
K Veeramani, a Tamil chauvinist and proprietor of Periyar Maniyammai University described the move as act of forcing the Brahminical cultural ethos on the Tamil culture.
But a senior Central Government official termed the statements as ‘much ado about nothing’.
“It was in 2016 Pongal was listed as a compulsory holiday as part of the rotation system. For the year 2017, it is another festival which has been declared as compulsory holiday. But this does not diminish the importance of Pongal as January 14 is a Saturday which is a holiday for central Government establishments. The move to makePongal a restricted holiday may affect the employees in the essential services of the Central Government which is a miniscule per cent of the Tamil Nadu population,” he said.