Tamil is spoken today by 8 Crore people in South India, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Africa and many other countries around the world. It is recognized as one of the seven Classic languages (Sanskrit, Hebrew, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Persian being the other 6) has its attestation from at least the first century B.C., though its roots go back much farther into the past. Tamil is the only South Asian language that boasts of a rich body of literary work dating back thousands of years and thrived all the way through to the modern world & still survives as a vibrant mother tongue for tens of millions of speakers despite many foreign occupations & outside influences. Today, Tamil is an official language in Sri Lanka, Singapore and recognized as a minority language in Malaysia, Mauritius and South Africa. Besides Tamil Nadu, Tamil is taught in educational institutions, both schools as one of the second languages in Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka. In the USA, Many leading institutions like University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and University of California at Berkley teach Tamil and are carrying out research on Tamil language.

Two Indian American doctors set out a few years ago to fulfil the vision of Mahakavi Subramania Bharatiar “தேமதுரத் தமிழோசை உலகமெலாம் பரவும்வகை செய்தல் வேண்டும்” which translates to “We must work to make Sweet Sound of Tamil reverberate all over the world” Even though Harvard University has recently started to teach Tamil, at the request of its students. However, it does not have a full time professor to teach and research, and Cardiologist Vijay Janakiraman and oncologist Sundaresan Sambandam set on a mission to set up a Sangam (ancient Tamil) professorship or Chair in Tamil at Harvard in the Department of South Asian Studies with the focus being on Tamil Sangam Literature and all Tamil literature influenced by it. Setting up a chair will enable them to hire a full time professor to teach & lead research on Tamil. Besides that the chair status provided by a premier institute to Tamil will works as an identity and recognition at the global level and encourage many non Tamilians to learn Tamil & spread the joy.  It will also create a source of knowledge for future debates and discussions.

A minimum of $6M is needed and the two doctors mentioned above contributed the seed funding and have been at the forefront of setting up Tamil Chair Inc. a non-profit organization, registered in the state of Maryland (USA) that is currently working on fund raising for Harvard Tamil Chair. Dr. Vijay & Dr. Sundaresan have contributed $0.5M each & the response to this initiative has been excellent & many prominent Tamils as well as ordinary Tamil diaspora around the globe have contributed generously to support this initiative. Kamal Haasan who recently has been in news for launching a new political party contributed 20 Lakh Indian rupees. The TN government, DMK led by Stalin, Actor Vishal, Actor Surya, Music Director  G.V.Prakash and many other Tamil Cultural Organizations across the world have all supported this. At the time this article goes to publish, $5.8 Million have been raised & just $200 K away from the goal the endowment set for itself when this initiative was started.

Not everyone is gung-ho about this initiative. U.S. Senate Candidate & a well known Indian American scientist, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai ( @va_shiva) has opposed this move. In a blog titled“Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai Stops Harvard’s Tamil Professorship Scam”   Dr. Shiva calls Harvard a “tax-exempt Wall Street hedge fund” and this initiative is an attempt to pilfer trillions of dollars’ worth of indigenous artefacts through the sale of a “Harvard Tamil Chair” professorship. Quoting Dr. Ayyadurai, “The fundraising effort in the name of setting up a Tamil Chair is a ruse that exemplifies Harvard’s habitual exploitation of indigenous people. This is an egregious example akin to a burglar asking you to pay money to buy a rickety ladder to rob your own home. Harvard is asking Tamilians to pay $6 million for a professorship that will be used to ‘rob’ their own historic artefacts worth trillions of dollars representing the ‘Holy Grail’ of the world’s most highly-prized indigenous knowledge.” Harvard will then proceed to use access to those artefacts to rewrite and hegemonies Tamil history, an unfortunate and recurrent process that Harvard has done for far too long to many indigenous cultures.

With due respect to Dr. Shiva, I personally believe that his opposition to setting up Harvard Chair is not an ideological one. Like most issues, the twitteratis have strong views for & against the Harvard Chair Issue, many of them simply dissing Harvard for having taken a stand against Dr. Swamy a few years ago. Some others fear that the Harvard Tamil Chair will become a nodal point for fuelling secession. While any initiative has the potential to be mismanaged & taken advantage off, some of these fear mongering statements are downright laughable.

Even though the goal is about to be reached & the mission to set up a chair could become a reality very soon, these are just the first steps towards actualising the vision of Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathiyar. To make this a sustainable effort, sustained sponsorship & funding is needed and all those who love Tamil, especially those who live off Tamil, the Tamil Cinema Industry must come forward and contribute generously towards making Tamil Great Again!