Amid an ongoing row between the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government over the National Education Policy (NEP) and the three-language formula, Tamil Nadu’s IT and Digital Services Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has intensified the debate, warning that India’s future is at risk if regional disparities persist.
Thiaga Rajan, who was speaking at The Indian Express’s Idea Exchange session, said that India had no future if the poor, high-population northern states did not see significant improvements in per capita incomes and outcomes.
He also pointed to what he described as “increasing net transfers from rich states to poor states,” and noted that the gap had only widened over time. Citing figures, he said, “When this government came to power, for every Re 1 of total grants and schemes’ taxes given to Tamil Nadu, UP got Rs 2.90. By 2024, it was Re 1 to Tamil Nadu, and Rs 4.35 to UP.”
Despite these growing transfers, Thiaga Rajan said that UP’s per capita GDP relative to Tamil Nadu had fallen, raising questions about how equality could ever be achieved under such circumstances.
“The question arises, how are we ever going to get equal if you keep on taking the money and you keep on not being able to produce any result? Where does this end?” he asked.
Calling himself a “patriot,” Thiaga Rajan said the party in Delhi should focus on fixing these structural issues but instead chooses to “berate, browbeat, threaten, extort, and blackmail” southern states like Tamil Nadu. He added that this was why Tamil Nadu did not want to lose any more representation.
On the issue of delimitation, he questioned why the Centre had not found a solution despite a freeze on the process for 50 years, and asked what would happen to Tamil Nadu if its voice in Delhi kept shrinking.
On the NEP language row, Thiaga Rajan argued that the real issue was not Tamil Nadu’s refusal to adopt NEP, but whether states like UP and Bihar could even teach one language properly and improve education outcomes.
He also said education was originally a state subject and maintained that Delhi should not dictate how Tamil Nadu runs its schools.