ProtestMGR era

DMK agitation against Navodaya schools

· Chennai

The DMK protested the National Policy on Education's Navodaya schools, seen as a route for Hindi imposition; the schools were not opened in Tamil Nadu.

The 1986 National Policy on Education provided for Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya residential schools, which the DMK argued would make Hindi compulsory. M. Karunanidhi announced an agitation against opening the schools in Tamil Nadu. On 17 November 1986, DMK members protested by burning copies of Part XVII of the Constitution, which deals with official language, and many were arrested. As a result of the compromise that followed, Navodaya schools were not established in Tamil Nadu, which remains the only state without them.

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