Tamil Nadu Minister slams Governor Ravi for slandering state, Dravidian ideals

26-Nov-2025

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Tamil Nadu Law Minister S Raghupathy on Tuesday accused Governor RN Ravi of “slandering” the state and repeatedly making “baseless allegations” against Tamils and the Dravidian movement.

Raghupathy was responding to remarks made by the Governor at a private event on November 24, where Ravi said Tamil Nadu politics was rooted in “Tamil exceptionalism,” claimed it promoted hatred toward other languages including Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, and criticised Tamil leaders for not doing enough to preserve the Tamil language or culture.

Ravi had also said students were steadily moving away from Tamil medium to English and alleged that the State had given “zero budget for research” in Tamil. 

He pointed to over 11 lakh palm-leaf manuscripts “rotting” in the archives, questioned the government’s reaction to the Tamil Thai Vazhthu controversy in 2024, and defended his decision to walk out of the Assembly session in January over the national anthem issue.