Jaya joins criticism of anti-Hindi agitation cartoons

'The Dravidian movement should have been explained to students using photographs of that era as they would be the best tool for this purpose and instead carrying a cartoon saying the Tamil student was not required to study Hindi and that he was ignorant towards English has hurt the sentiments of Tamil people,' she said in a statement in Chennai.

Further, it was "not acceptable" that Tamil students opposed to the imposition of Hindi took to violence, she said, adding that Dravidian veteran CN Annadurai had insisted that Tamils were neither subservient to others nor aimed at making others subservient to them.

'It (publication of the cartoon) not only amounts to demean the anti-Hindi movement but also seems to insult Annadurai and (EV Ramasamy) Periar who led the protests. Though a photograph was published in the text book to explain the intensity and importance of the movement, a contradictory proportion was suggested by the cartoon.

'It is regrettable that a cartoon hurting the Tamils' sentiments has been published. I strongly condemn it. I urge the Centre to immediately remove it from the textbooks,' she demanded.

Earlier, Dravidian parties including ruling United Progressive Alliance constituent the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Marumalarchi DMK had demanded the removal of the cartoon even as Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal had announced formation of a committee to review the classes IX- XII Social Science and Political Science textbooks of NCERT after the row erupted.