PMK founder S.Ramadoss being taken in a police van for staging a demonstration without permission at Tindivanam on Tuesday
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) founder S. Ramadoss, along with a large number of party workers, courted arrest here on Tuesday.
Defying police direction, they staged a demonstration in front of the taluk office here, urging the government to immediately implement the Samacheer Kalvi Thittam. The police took Dr. Ramadoss and some other frontline leaders in a separate van and the party cadres in buses to a nearby marriage hall. Since the vehicles could not accommodate all of them, some cadres travelled on the roof tops of the buses. No sooner did they enter the marriage hall, instructions came from the higher-ups to free them.
During his brief stay at the hall, Dr. Ramadoss told The Hindu that the Jayalalithaa government could trifle with any thing but not the education of 1.20 crore students whose career prospects and future depended on it.
Somehow, from the beginning, the government seemed to have adopted a reprehensible attitude towards the Samacheer Kalvi Thittam or Uniform System of School Education (USSE), which was intended to bring about equality among students regardless of their economic background. The PMK has been insisting that the government facilitate free, compulsory, standardised and equitable education to all and, with this objective, staged a number of agitations, he said. He faulted the erstwhile Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) regime for diluting the recommendations of the Muthukumaran Committee, particularly the one related to the medium of instruction.
The Committee had favoured the mother-tongue as the medium of instruction except in English. But, what was dished out by the previous government was not in conformity with the Committee's recommendation. Therefore, he would prefer to call it not as an equitable system of education but a “compromised system of education.” Dr. Ramadoss said that the incumbent government should have rectified the shortcomings and implemented the system. Instead, it had gone for change of statute and moved courts against the USSE.
No to freebies
Dr. Ramadoss said nobody wanted freebies but would opt for equitable education that would enable the poor and the downtrodden to get quality education thereby brightening their career prospects. He said that the distribution of free cattle could wait but the government should distribute the new books already printed and kept ready to students without delay. Dr. Ramadoss was critical of the government's restrictions on staging democratic and peaceful agitation on vital causes such as education. When the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagtam was in the opposition, it used to stage a series of agitations but the then government never came in its way. Though the PMK had sought permission from the Director General of Police and the District Police Offices for staging the State-wide agitation on Tuesday, this was denied. Yet, the party went ahead with the agitation. After his release, Dr. Ramadoss called upon the cadre to disperse peacefully and not damage public property.
