While taking charge as the Governor of Tamil Nadu, RN Ravi spoke about a clean slate. South First takes a cursory look to check if the slate is still clean.
Published Oct 20, 2024 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Oct 20, 2024 | 9:00 AM
Governor RN Ravi and CM MK Stalin
Controversies are not new to Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi.
His gubernatorial term in Nagaland ended on a bitter note, with the Isak Muivah-led National Socialist Council of Nagaland condoning his alleged softness towards Naga National Political Groups.
The Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party, too, criticised him with the organisation’s president Chingwang Konyak accusing Ravi of interfering in the functioning of the government. Journalists of the Kohima Press Club snubbed Ravi by boycotting the farewell function the state had organised for him.
Later, the ruling alliance partners in Tamil Nadu, too, did the same by staying away from the customary ‘At Home’ tea party he hosted as part of the Independence Day celebrations over his alleged anti-democratic ways.
On 9 September 2021, President Ram Nath Kovind appointed Ravi, a former IPS officer, as the Governor of Tamil Nadu.
Chief Minister MK Stalin was at the forefront, welcoming the governor, even as DMK allies Congress and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) saw ulterior motives in the Centre sending him to Tamil Nadu.
Soon after taking the oath, Ravi told reporters: “A governor is to function within the parameters of the constitution. And I will try my best to keep that in mind. The slate of our (his and the state government) relationship is absolutely new and clean. My effort will be to make it as beautiful as possible in the days to come.”
The bonhomie between Stalin and Ravi did not last long. Soon after checking into Raj Bhavan, Ravi did what the Congress and VCK had feared. Between September 2021 and May 2022, the Governor withheld his assent to 21 bills passed by the state Assembly.
Ravi referring the remission plea of Rajiv Gandhi assassination convict AG Perarivalan to the president, too, came under the scanner, and the Supreme Court observed it as a move striking at the very roots of the country’s federal structure.
On 19 April 2022, while the governor’s convoy was passing through Mayiladuthurai to the Dharmapuram Adheenam mutt, black flags were shown to him for delaying bills passed in the Assembly.
It was the first black-flag protest by the DMK allies — including the VCK, the Congress, and the Communist parties.
The governor alleged that stones were pelted at his convoy and his car was attacked during the protest. The police refuted the allegations.
The anti-NEET bill — or the Tamil Nadu Admission to Under Graduate Medical Degree Courses Bill, 2021 — was among the bills withheld by the Governor.
The government decided to introduce the bill after at least 22 dejected students had died by suicide in the state. The bill sought to do away with the national common entrance test and return to the previous system that admitted students to MBBS courses based on their Class 12 performance.
Tamil Nadu’s Legislative Assembly passed the bill twice but Ravi did not consent to them. Instead, it was forwarded to the president.
Ravi in an Independence Day message said more government school students were enrolling in medical courses. The government and Opposition parties condemned the statement.
The governor did not miss any opportunity to train guns at the government. Interacting with civil service aspirants at the Raj Bhavan in April 2023, Ravi said he would not assent to the anti-NEET bill.
Ravi said that withholding a bill did not mean that the governor was simply holding it, but rather that the bill was dead.
In the same meeting, he said that anti-Sterlite protests were induced by foreign funds.
“The Tuticorin Sterlite plant used to meet 40% of the country’s copper requirement. Everyone knows how important copper is for the development of the country. But to prevent the development of the country, they got money from foreign countries and incited the people and closed down the Sterlite plant,” he reportedly said.
On 29 February this year, the Supreme Court rejected Vedanta Ltd’s appeal to restart its Sterlite copper smelting plant at Thoothukudi, citing repeated breaches and serious environmental violations.
Upping the ante against Ravi, Stalin on 10 April 2023 adopted an unprecedented resolution urging the Centre and the President to fix a timeframe for governors to approve bills adopted by state assemblies. The very same day, the Governor cleared the pending bills.
While presiding over the 37th Convocation of Bharathidasan University on 9 December 2021, Ravi batted for the National Education Policy (NEP), which was vehemently opposed by the Stalin-led DMK government. In the subsequent days, DMK ministers responded that they would not implement the NEP in the state.
Ravi, hailing from Bihar, urged the government to provide students the facility to learn other Indian languages.
He was referring to Tamil Nadu’s opposition to the three-language formula and curriculum changes mooted by the National Education Policy, 2020. The governor also felt the standard of students in Tamil Nadu was deteriorating.
“The new education policy should not be seen as political. Our culture, tradition, and history have been hidden by many governments. That hidden history can be reclaimed by the new National Education Policy. The political leaders here should read and know what the new national education policy is. No one here has read it completely,” he claimed.
The governor commented even as Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states were vehemently opposing the Centre’s alleged move to impose Hindi.
The governor did not hesitate to target the government after human excreta was found mixed with water in an overhead tank at the scheduled caste-dominated Vengaivayal village in the Puthukottai district in December 2022.
He rapped the government for not arresting the culprits despite the DMK-led dispensation’s repeated claims of providing social justice. The miscreants in the case are still at large.
The attack on a 17-year-old Dalit student in 2023, too, once again armed the Governor to target the government. The student’s younger sister was also attacked by six of his schoolmates, who had barged into their house at Nanguneri in Tirunelveli.
The boy, who suffered injuries, took his Class 12 Tamil Nadu board exams with the help of a scribe and scored 78 percent.
Ravi took the attack on the boy as an opportunity to taunt the government on the low conviction rates in cases of crimes against the backward classes.
“According to the NCRB data, the conviction rate in rape cases against scheduled caste victims is shockingly half the national average,” he said.
In an interview with a news organisation on 4 May 2023, Ravi levelled several allegations against the state government, including that the two-finger test was conducted on the minor children of Chidambaram Dikshithars.
The state government and the police vehemently criticised the comments and denied the allegations.
Playing the social justice card on Gandhi Jayanti, 2023, Ravi expressed regret that “horrifying atrocities are being committed against the Scheduled Tribes. Crimes against the Scheduled Tribes have increased by 40 percent in the last three years,” he said at Gandhi Mandapam in Adayar.
The governor-government spat took a new low on 9 January 2023 when Ravi dropped various words such as social justice, self-respect, equality, women’s rights, Father Periyar, Annal Ambedkar, and Dravidian model from his customary address to the state Assembly.
The speech, as usual, was prepared by the government. When Ravi dropped the words, an incensed Stalin moved a resolution requesting that the speaker record only the speech prepared by the state administration and strike out any passages that the governor had inserted or omitted.
While the chief minister was speaking on the resolution — which was passed — the governor walked out of the Assembly even before the national anthem was played.
The governor repeated his act in the Assembly again on 12 February 2024. He refused to read the entire address but for the introductory part. He left the Assembly while the speaker was reading out the Tamil version of the address. This time too, Ravi left before the national anthem.
On 31 May 2023, Ravi wrote to Stalin to drop V Senthil Balaji from the Cabinet, pointing out the ED raids on the minister. Stalin refused to do so, standing his ground.
Ravi unilaterally issued an order on 30 June dismissing Balaji from the Cabinet, but hours later put his decision in abeyance.
Emotions were running high in South Indian states against what they perceived as the Union government’s unilateral move to force Hindi upon them when the Rashtrapati Bhavan invited guests attending the G20 summit for dinner.
The invitation letter said the President of Bharat was inviting them for the 9 September 2023 dinner at Bharat Mandapam instead of the President of India. The change of name of the country from India to Sanskrit Bharat created a political storm.
Months before President Droupadi Murmu invited global leaders for dinner, Ravi had created a flutter by suggesting renaming Tamil Nadu as Tamizhagam.
While felicitating the organisers and volunteers of Kashi-Tamil Sangamam at the Raj Bhavan on 4 January 2023, Ravi said Thamizhagam would be the more appropriate word to call the state.
Tamil Nadu is the land that holds the soul of Bharat. It is the identity of Bharat. In fact, Thamizhagam would be the more appropriate word to call it,” he said after elaborating on Tamil Nadu’s regressive politics that “we are Dravidians”.
“Everything applicable for the whole of the country, Tamil Nadu will say no,” he added, and urged his audience to oppose it.
Tamil Nadu — barring the BJP unit — did not take the comment lightly. Posters asking “#Getout Ravi” appeared in several parts of Chennai. The demand for the Centre to recall Ravi grew louder.
The Dravidian model of governance — focusing on peace, progress, and prosperity — has been the DMK’s guiding principle. Governor Ravi questioned the model, saying it was non-existent.
In an interview published in The Times of India on 4 May 2023, Ravi dismissed the Dravidian model as merely a political slogan, raised to revive a dead ideology. He also said the model that “rabidly enforces linguistic apartheid” besides fostering separatist sentiment.
“…there is no such model of governance. It is only a political slogan, a desperate bid to sustain an expired ideology, an ideology that does not relish the idea of ‘Oru Bharatham, One India’,” he categorically said while justifying his walkout from the state Assembly.
“I don’t think anyone can expect me to endorse that. No, I will not, and I said I will not. After my speech, the speaker read out the Tamil version, I waited,” he said.
The DMK launched a no-holds-barred attack on the Governor. “Ravi seems to be labouring under a delusion that he knows the people and politics of the state. Ironically what is passe, dead and gone, is only the relevance of the post of Governor,” the party’s Rajya Sabha member P Wilson tweeted.
Governor Ravi does not doubt that Sanatana dharma and Sanatana kalachar (culture) started and spread to the entire country from the south, especially — as he puts it — Tamizhagam.
On 1 November 2021, during the 42nd Convocation of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Ravi spoke about Santana Dharma among students — the first time he would do so in public.
Addressing the 176th Thyagaraja Aradhana in Thiruvayur in January 2023, he said the country was built by sages, rishis, and poets to whom the ultimate wisdom of creation and creator was revealed that there is one creator, God, and Brahma.
Eight months later in September, Udhayanidhi Stalin, now the deputy chief minister, likened Sanatana dharma to dengue and malaria and called for its eradication.
Udhayanidhi argued that the idea of Sanatana dharma was inherently regressive, dividing people based on caste and gender, and was fundamentally opposed to equality and social justice.
His comment invited nationwide criticism, especially from the BJP and its then ally AIADMK, who labelled the DMK as anti-Hindu.
The latest controversy involving the governor brought the ruling DMK and Opposition AIADMK on the same page.
On Friday, 18 October, Doordarshan Chennai celebrated its Golden Jubilee and the conclusion of the Hindi month. Governor Ravi was the chief guest.
The state anthem, Tamil Thai Vazhthu, sang at the venue missed a line, “Thekkanamum athirsirantha Dravida nalthirunaadum” — the great Dravidian nation — kickstarting a slugfest.
Chief Minister Stalin said Ravi was suffering from “Dravidian allergy” and he was not fit to hold the office of the governor. “Governor, are you an Aryan”, Stalin wondered and added that removing “Dravidian” from the anthem amounted to a breach of law.
Stalin also asked if the governor “who suffers from Dravidian allergy ask them to leave out ‘Dravida’ from the national anthem”. While urging the Centre to recall Ravi, the chief minister said he had deliberately insulted the sentiments of Tamil people.
The former IPS officer involved in anti-insurgency operations hit back, condemning the DMK’s “toxic and separatist policy” and “perceived attempt to isolate Tamil Nadu from the rest of India”. Ravi, however, preferred Tamil Nadu to Tamizhagam this time.
The omission of the line from the state anthem once again sparked the language war with Stalin condemning the imposition of Hindi and the governor criticising the state for not accepting the three-language formula.
AIADMK leader and Opposition Leader Edappadi K Palaniswami condemned the omission. He called it a grave mistake and emphasised the significance of the word “Dravidian” to the people of Tamil Nadu. He also referred to it as “the light of life” and a symbol of resistance against oppression.
Congress leader Selvaperunthagai questioned whether the organisers had acted to appease the governor by skipping the line. He also pointed out that the word “Dravidian” is present in the national anthem.
Even as the war of words escalated, the Raj Bhavan issued a clarification.
“At the beginning of the programme, the troupe who recites the Thamizthaai Vaazhthu has inadvertently missed a line which consists of the word “Dravida”. The matter was immediately brought to the notice of the organizers and appropriate authorities were asked to look into the matter. The Governor or His Office has no role in this except that he participated in the Programme,” the statement said.
The governor has high respect towards Tamil & sentiments of the State and will continue to hold them at the highest level,” the Raj Bhavan added.
Doordarshan’s Tamil division, known as ‘Pothikai’, was rebranded as ‘DD Tamil’ in January 2024. The release of its logo – in saffron colour – had sparked protests across Tamil Nadu.
Ravi means sun in Sanskrit. The rising sun represents DMK. Tamil Nadu is feeling the heat of the clash of two suns, and a peaceful dawn seems to be a distant dream. The slate which Ravi mentioned soon after taking oath is not clean.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
