144-631: The Sengol ( Tamil : செங்கோல்) is a gold-plated, silver sceptre that is installed in New Parliament House in New Delhi , India. The sceptre was originally gifted to Jawaharlal Nehru , the first Prime Minister of India , by a Tamil Adheenam in a religious ceremony on the evening before the Independence of India in 1947. The Sengol was housed at Allahabad Museum as 'Nehru's Golden walking stick' for seventy years until it
288-477: A Rath Yatra (chariot journey) to Ayodhya in support of the Ram temple movement. According to Guha, the imagery employed by the yatra was "religious, allusive, militant, masculine, and anti-Muslim". Advani was placed under preventive detention on the orders of the then Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav . A large number of kar sevaks (religious volunteers) nonetheless converged at Ayodhya, and some attacked
432-537: A Hindu nationalist ideology. As of January 2024, it is the country's biggest political party in terms of representation in the Parliament of India as well as state legislatures . The party's origins lie in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh , which was founded in 1951 by Indian politician Syama Prasad Mukherjee , after he left Hindu Mahasabha to form a party as the political wing of RSS. After
576-551: A joint session of the Parliament, where the numerical superior Lok Sabha allowed the bill to pass. The act was subsequently used to prosecute hundreds of people accused of terrorism. However, it was criticised by opposition parties and scholars for being an infringement upon civil liberties , and the National Human Rights Commission of India stated that it had been used to target Muslims. It
720-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or
864-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without
1008-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and
1152-570: A Hindu country to the exclusion of other religions, making the BJP a Hindu nationalist party in a general sense. The BJP moderated its stance after the NDA was formed in 1998, due to the presence of parties with a broader set of ideologies. The BJP's Hindutva ideology has been reflected in many of its government policies. It supports the construction of the Ram Mandir temple at the disputed site of
1296-476: A coalition; this caused the shelving of the Jana Sangh's more radical agenda. In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency . The Jana Sangh took part in the widespread protests, with thousands of its members being imprisoned along with other agitators across the country. In 1977, the emergency was withdrawn and general elections were held. The Jana Sangh merged with parties from across
1440-468: A courtesy. Soon afterwards, the Sengol and other belongings of Nehru were donated to Allahabad Museum , where the sceptre was labelled "Golden Stick gifted to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru". The Sengol remained largely forgotten until it was used in the inauguration of New Parliament House , New Delhi , in 2023. At the inauguration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi , who was accompanied by Hindu priests heading
1584-549: A criterion for citizenship under Indian law : it attracted global criticism , and sparked widespread protests that were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic . Counter-demonstrations against the protests developed into the 2020 Delhi riots , caused chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims. Of the 53 people killed, two-thirds were Muslim. In 2013, the Supreme Court of India reinstated the controversial Section 377 of
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#17327805393281728-420: A diameter of about three inches (76 mm) at the top and one inch (25 mm) at the bottom. It encases a wooden staff and is surmounted by a sitting Nandi to symbolise justice and sturdiness. Barely a fortnight after Nehru received the Sengol , C. N. Annadurai , a Dravidian nationalist and the future first Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu , wrote a polemical tract on the subject for Dravida Nadu , pondering
1872-519: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of
2016-635: A historian, and stated that the appointment was part of an agenda of cultural nationalism. Over its first term the Modi administration appointed other RSS members to lead universities and research institutions, and recruitment of faculty members favoring the RSS increased. Scholars Nandini Sundar and Kiran Bhatty write that many of these appointees did not possess the qualifications for their positions. The Modi administration also made numerous changes in government-approved history textbooks. These changes de-emphasizing
2160-750: A low figure relative to the number of seats it won. This was the first instance since 1984 of a single party achieving an outright majority in the Indian Parliament and the first time that it achieved a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own strength. Support was concentrated in the Hindi-speaking belt in North-central India. The magnitude of the victory was not predicted by most opinion and exit polls. Political analysts have suggested several reasons for this victory, including
2304-615: A medium-range ballistic missile. They were seen as an attempt to display India's military prowess to the world, and a reflection of anti-Pakistan sentiment within the BJP. The Vajpayee government ordered the Indian armed forces to expel the Pakistani soldiers occupying Kashmir territory, later known as the Kargil War . Although the government was later criticised for the intelligence failures that did not detect Pakistani presence, it
2448-452: A minor presence in parliament until 1967. The Jana Sangh's first major campaign, begun in early 1953, centred on a demand for the complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir into India. Mukherjee was arrested in May 1953 for violating orders from the state government restraining him from entering Kashmir. He died of a heart attack the following month, while still in jail. Mauli Chandra Sharma
2592-554: A more protectionist turn on international trade during his second term, withdrawing from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership talks and introducing the 2020 Atmanirbhar Bharat economic plan, which emphasises national self-sufficiency. Compared to Congress, the BJP takes a more aggressive and nationalistic position on defence policy and terrorism. The Vajpayee-led NDA government carried out nuclear weapons tests and enacted
2736-433: A more aggressive stance on defence and terror and neo-liberal economic policies. In 2001, Bangaru Laxman , then the BJP president, was filmed accepting a bribe in a sting operation . He was compelled to resign and was subsequently prosecuted, eventually being sentenced to four years in prison. On 27 February 2002, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was burned outside the town of Godhra , killing 59 people. The incident
2880-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil
3024-671: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
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#17327805393283168-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with
3312-514: A radical shift from BJP orthodoxy while maintaining some aspects of it. Its policy also represented a significant change from the Nehruvian idealism of previous governments, opting instead for realism. His party criticised him for adopting a much more moderate stance with Pakistan. In 1998, he made a landmark visit to Pakistan, and inaugurated the Delhi–Lahore Bus service. Vajpayee signed
3456-534: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Bharatiya Janata Party ( 4013 MLAs & 23 Vacant) ( 403 MLCs & 23 Vacant) The Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP , [bʱaːɾətiːjə dʒənətaː paːɾʈiː] ; lit. ' Indian People's Party ' )
3600-610: A significant influence on the BJP's ideology. During the Cold War, the party and its affiliates strongly opposed India's long standing policy of non-alignment , and instead advocated closeness to the United States. In the post-Cold War era, the party has largely embraced the Indian foreign policy consensus of improving relations with the United States, while stressing a desire for a more multipolar world order. The Vajpayee government's foreign policy in many ways represented
3744-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of
3888-404: A streak in sacred ash across Nehru's forehead. Then he wrapped Nehru in the pithambaram and handed him the golden sceptre. He also gave Nehru some cooked rice which had been offered that very morning to the dancing god Nataraja in south India, then flown by plane to Delhi. The event had negligible impact on public discourse at the time; contemporaneous news clips recorded the gift of the Sengol as
4032-473: A strongly neo-liberal agenda, presented as a drive towards development. Its policies have included extensive privatisation of infrastructure and services, as well as a significant rollback of labour and environmental regulations. While this was praised by the business community, commentators criticised it as catering to the BJP's upper-class constituency instead of the poor. The economic policies of Modi's government focused on privatisation and liberalisation of
4176-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who
4320-637: A symbol of revolt against the British Raj . Lotus is also recognised as the national flower of India . Thus, use of the symbol gives the party a nationalist as well as Hindutva appeal. Besides these, the party also heavily uses the Saffron colour in its promotional materials and campaigning. Similar to Lotus, the Saffron colour also has a major significance within Hinduism. The most common flag used by
4464-498: A temple once stood there. The agitation was on the basis of the belief that the site is the birthplace of Rama, and that a temple had been demolished to construct the mosque. The BJP threw its support behind this campaign and made it a part of their election platform. It won 86 Lok Sabha seats in 1989, a tally which made its support crucial to the National Front government of V. P. Singh . In September 1990, Advani began
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4608-463: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on
4752-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to
4896-671: Is a political party in India and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress . Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under the incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi . The BJP is aligned with right-wing politics and has close ideological and organisational links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right paramilitary organisation . Its policies adhere to Hindutva ,
5040-527: Is a significant range of economic ideologies within the party. In the 1980s, like the Jana Sangh , it reflected the thinking of the RSS and its affiliates. It supported swadeshi (the promotion of indigenous industries and products) and a protectionist export policy. However, it supported internal economic liberalisation , and opposed the state-driven industrialisation favoured by the Congress. During
5184-527: Is aiming to gain electoral significance in South India through its Look South campaign. Soon after the Sengol 's installation, Amit Shah , one of BJP's main strategists, asked Tamil voters to elect 25 BJP coalition legislators to Parliament as a show of gratitude. Vummidi Bangaru Chetty, a jeweller from Chennai (then called Madras), crafted the Sengol . The Sengol is a handcrafted, gold-plated sceptre about five feet (1.5 m) long, and has
5328-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel
5472-457: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,
5616-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of
5760-511: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that
5904-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change
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6048-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,
6192-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard
6336-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,
6480-469: Is opposed to same-sex marriage , stating in a legal affidavit that legalizing it would cause "complete havoc with the delicate balance of personal laws in the country" and that it was "not comparable with Indian family unit concept of a husband, wife & children which necessarily presuppose a biological man as 'husband', a biological woman as 'wife' and children born out of union". The BJP's economic policy has changed considerably since its founding. There
6624-539: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate
6768-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which
6912-793: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only
7056-511: The 1984 general election , it grew in strength on the back of the movement around Ram Janmabhoomi in Uttar Pradesh . Following victories in several state elections and better performances in national elections, the BJP became the largest political party in the Parliament in 1996; however, it lacked a majority in the lower house of Parliament, and its government, under its then-leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee , lasted for only 13 days. After
7200-548: The 1998 general election , the BJP-led coalition known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) under prime minister Vajpayee formed a government that lasted for a year. Following fresh elections, the NDA government—again headed by Vajpayee—lasted for a full term in office; this was the first non-Congress government to do so. In the 2004 general election , the NDA suffered an unexpected defeat, and for
7344-481: The 2017 Doklam standoff with China. The Modi government considers national security to be one of their key focuses and has implemented many long-standing defence reforms. In August 2019, the Modi government established the post of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) to ensure better coordination between all three services, a reform that was widely requested after the 1999 Kargil War. The Department of Military Affairs
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#17327805393287488-543: The Babri Mosque . This issue was its major poll plank in the 1991 general elections. However, the demolition of the mosque during a BJP rally in 1992 resulted in a backlash against it, leading to a decline of the temple's prominence in its agenda. The education policy of the NDA government reorganised the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and tasked it with extensively revising
7632-546: The Bharatiya Jana Sangh , popularly known as the Jana Sangh, founded by Syama Prasad Mukherjee in 1951 in response to the politics of the dominant National Congress party . It was founded in collaboration with the Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and was widely regarded as the political arm of the RSS. The Jana Sangh's aims included the protection of India's "Hindu" cultural identity, in addition to countering what it perceived to be
7776-475: The Lahore Declaration , which was an attempt to improve Indo-Pakistani relations that deteriorated after the 1998 nuclear tests. However, the presence of Pakistani soldiers and militants in the disputed Kashmir territory was discovered a few months later, causing the 1999 Kargil War . The war ended a couple of months later, with the expulsion of the infiltrators two months later, without any shift in
7920-465: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name
8064-651: The Prevention of Terrorism Act , which later came under heavy criticism. It also deployed troops to evict infiltrators from Kargil, and supported the United States War on Terror . Although previous Congress governments developed the capability for a nuclear weapons test, the Vajpayee government broke with India's historical strategy of avoiding it and authorised Pokhran-II , a series of five nuclear tests in 1998. The tests came soon after Pakistan tested
8208-552: The Sengol at his home. According to a report in Time : From Tanjore in south India came two emissaries of Sri Amblavana Desigar, head of a sannyasi order of Hindu ascetics. Sri Amblavana thought that Nehru, as first Indian head of a really Indian Government ought, like ancient Hindu kings, to receive the symbol of power and authority from Hindu holy men ... One sannyasi carried a sceptre of gold, five feet long, two inches thick. He sprinkled Nehru with holy water from Tanjore and drew
8352-761: The Shiv Sena in addition to the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the Biju Janata Dal . Among these regional parties, the Shiv Sena was the only one that had an ideology similar to the BJP; Amartya Sen , for example, called the coalition an "ad hoc" grouping. The NDA had a majority with outside support from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Vajpayee returned as Prime Minister. However,
8496-483: The Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil
8640-599: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to
8784-426: The Uttar Pradesh assembly. On 6 December 1992, the RSS and its affiliates organised a rally involving more than 100,000 VHP and BJP activists at the site of the mosque. The rally developed into a frenzied attack that ended with the demolition of the mosque . Over the following weeks, waves of violence between Hindus and Muslims erupted all over the country, killing over 2,000 people. The government briefly banned
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#17327805393288928-537: The special status given to Jammu and Kashmir . After assembly elections across the country in 1967, the party entered into a coalition with several other parties, including the Swatantra Party and the socialists. It formed governments in various states across the Hindi Belt , including Madhya Pradesh , Bihar and Uttar Pradesh . It was the first time the Jana Sangh held political office, albeit within
9072-491: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak
9216-419: The 1996 elections, and later when it was in government, the BJP shifted its stance away from protectionism and towards globalisation . The tenure of the NDA saw an unprecedented influx of foreign companies in India. This was criticised, including by the BJP's affiliates, the RSS and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch: the RSS stated that the BJP was not being true to its swadeshi ideology. The two NDA governments in
9360-462: The 20 Adheenams in Tamil Nadu, installed the Sengol near the chair of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha . Simultaneously, the Government of India propagated a now-discredited narrative of the Sengol being a symbol of the transfer of power from the United Kingdom to India. The narrative appears to have been derived from a year-old article by Swaminathan Gurumurthy , a Hindu nationalist, published in Thuglak magazine ; Gurumurthy attributed it to
9504-411: The BJP government has enacted several priorities of the RSS, including criminalising the practice of triple talaq , and revoking Article 370 of the Constitution of India (which granted autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir ), abrogating its statehood . India has experienced nationwide democratic backsliding under the BJP's rule since 2014 . The name as well as the symbol of the party were selected by
9648-474: The BJP in their global network. However, BJP's youth organisation remains a member of the youth wing of the IDU. During Modi's first term as prime minister, the BJP expanded its presence in several states where it had previously been a minor player, and it regained power in other states where it had been in opposition for a considerable period. Assam , Tripura , Arunachal Pradesh , Uttar Pradesh , Bihar , Haryana , and Jammu and Kashmir saw an increase in
9792-434: The BJP's electoral campaigns, while the Modi administration appointed a number of individuals affiliated with the RSS to prominent government positions. In 2014, Yellapragada Sudershan Rao , who had previously been associated with the RSS, became the chairperson of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR). Historians and former members of the ICHR, including those sympathetic to the BJP, questioned his credentials as
9936-428: The BJP's influence, and the party entered government in several of these states. In 2019, the BJP won the general election with an increased majority. Soon after returning to power, on 5 August 2019, the Modi administration revoked the special status, or limited autonomy , granted under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution to Jammu and Kashmir —a region administered by India as a state. This state consists of
10080-410: The Emergency of 1975–1977, the Jana Sangh merged with several other political parties to form the Janata Party ; it defeated the then-incumbent Indian National Congress in the 1977 general election . After three years in power, the Janata Party dissolved in 1980, with the members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh reconvening to form the modern-day BJP. Although initially unsuccessful—winning only two seats in
10224-437: The Indian Penal Code , which, among other things, criminalises homosexuality. There was a popular outcry, although clerics, including Muslim religious leaders, stated that they supported the verdict. BJP president Rajnath Singh said that the party supported Section 377, because it believed that homosexuality was unnatural, though the party softened the stance after its victory in the 2014 general elections. The Modi government
10368-481: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by
10512-474: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in
10656-594: The Jana Sangh remained relatively unchanged, retaining a strong association with the RSS, which did not sit well with the moderate centre-right constituents of the Party. Violence between Hindus and Muslims increased sharply during the years that the Janata Party formed the government, with former Jana Sangha members being implicated in the riots in Aligarh and Jamshedpur in 1978–79. The other major constituents of
10800-477: The Janata Party demanded that the former Jana Sangh members should dissociate themselves from the RSS, which they refused to do. Eventually, a fragment of the Janata Party broke off to form the Janata Party (Secular) . The Morarji Desai government was reduced to a minority in the Parliament, forcing Desai's resignation. Following a brief period of coalition rule, general elections were held in 1980, in which
10944-568: The Janata Party fared poorly, winning only 31 seats. In April 1980, shortly after the elections, the National Executive Council of the Janata Party banned its members from being 'dual members' of party and the RSS. In response, the former Jana Sangh members left to create a new political party, known as the Bharatiya Janata Party. Although the newly formed BJP was technically distinct from the Jana Sangh,
11088-515: The Rajya Sabha and Sushma Swaraj in the Lok Sabha for the following 5 years. It lost the Karnataka assembly election in 2013. In the 2014 Indian general election , the BJP won 282 seats, leading the NDA to a tally of 336 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha. Narendra Modi was sworn in as the 14th prime minister of India on 26 May 2014. The vote share of the BJP was 31% of all votes cast,
11232-590: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)
11376-638: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as
11520-521: The VHP, and many BJP leaders, including Advani were arrested for making inflammatory speeches provoking the demolition. Several historians have said that the demolition was the product of a conspiracy by the Sangh Parivar, and not a spontaneous act. In the parliamentary elections in 1996, the BJP capitalised on the communal polarisation that followed the demolition to win 161 Lok Sabha seats, making it
11664-535: The alliance governs 17 Indian states and union territories. The official ideology of the BJP is integral humanism , first formulated by Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1965. The party advocates social conservatism and a foreign policy centred on nationalist principles. During its first period in national government, the BJP avoided its Hindu nationalist priorities, and focused on a largely liberal economic policy that prioritised globalisation and economic growth over social welfare . Since returning to government in 2014,
11808-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ
11952-506: The appeasement of Muslim people and the country of Pakistan by the Congress party and then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru . The RSS loaned several of its leading pracharaks , or full-time workers, to the Jana Sangh to get the new party off the ground. Prominent among these was Deendayal Upadhyaya , who was appointed General Secretary. The Jana Sangh won only three Lok Sabha seats in the first general elections in 1952 . It maintained
12096-432: The bulk of its rank and file were identical to its predecessor, with Vajpayee being its first president. Historian Ramachandra Guha writes that the early 1980s were marked by a wave of violence between Hindus and Muslims. The BJP initially moderated the Hindu nationalist stance of its predecessor the Jana Sangh to gain a wider appeal, emphasising its links to the Janata Party and the ideology of Gandhian socialism . This
12240-545: The coalition ruptured in May 1999 when the leader of AIADMK, J. Jayalalithaa , withdrew her support, and fresh elections were held again. On 13 October 1999, without the AIADMK, the NDA won 303 seats in parliament and thus an outright majority. The BJP had its highest-ever tally of 183. Vajpayee became Prime Minister for the third time; Advani became Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister . This NDA government lasted its full term of five years. Its policy agenda included
12384-412: The country's largest unions went on strike, including one affiliated with the BJP. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh , a constituent of the Sangh Parivar, stated that the underlying motivation of labour reforms favoured corporations over labourers. Modi has been described as taking a more economically populist approach on healthcare and agricultural policy. Modi's government has also been described as taking
12528-689: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,
12672-570: The delegation travelled by air. Facing criticism for lacking in facts, the Government published a collection of sources, ranging from monographs by academic historians to a blog that rejected its narrative, as evidence; they did not support any of the claims. According to analysts, the 2023 episode with the Sengol was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party 's (BJP) strategy to present itself as champions of Tamil culture. The party
12816-534: The demolition. He was accused of posting bureaucrats and police officers who would stay silent during the demolition. In 2020, the Supreme Court of India acquitted all of the accused in the demolition including Advani and Joshi. Following the 2019 Supreme Court verdict , the Government of India announced a trust to construct the Mandir. On 22 January 2024, the Ram Mandir was officially opened. Prime Minister Narendra Modi led its consecration, claiming it to be
12960-952: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of
13104-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from
13248-791: The differential procedures required to protect the cultural identity of the Muslim minority. The BJP favoured, and in 2019 enacted, the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India , which granted a greater degree of autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir in recognition of the unusual circumstances surrounding its accession to the Indian Union . It simultaneously abrogated Jammu and Kashmir statehood , reorganizing it into two union territories , Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh . The BJP opposes illegal immigration into India from Bangladesh . The party states that this migration, mostly in
13392-647: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in
13536-468: The economy, based on a neoliberal framework. Modi liberalised India's foreign direct investment policies, allowing more foreign investment in several industries, including in defence and the railways. Other proposed reforms included making it harder for workers to form unions and easier for employers to hire and fire them; some of these proposals were dropped after protests. The reforms drew strong opposition from unions: on 2 September 2015, eleven of
13680-417: The founders. The name "Bharatiya Janata Party" literally translates to "Indian People's Party". The Symbol of the party is the flower Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) . Lotus has a cultural significance within India as well as Hinduism . The symbol has been regarded as a symbol of peace and prosperity within Hinduism. Likewise, during the independence movement of India , the symbol was used by Indian nationalist as
13824-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil
13968-403: The history has been widely described as a right-wing party , but has recently been described as far-right or part of the radical right, a subset of the far-right that does not oppose democracy. The official philosophy of the BJP is " Integral humanism ," a philosophy first formulated by Deendayal Upadhyaya in 1965, who described it as advocating an "indigenous economic model that puts
14112-409: The human being at center stage." It is committed to Hindutva , an ideology articulated by Indian independence activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar . According to the party, Hindutva is cultural nationalism favouring Indian culture over westernisation , thus it extends to all Indians regardless of religion. Scholars and political analysts describe Hindutva as seeking to redefine India and recast it as
14256-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by
14400-750: The larger part of Kashmir which has been the subject of a dispute among India, Pakistan , and China since 1947. Later in 2019, the Modi administration introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 , which was passed by the Parliament of India on 11 December 2019. It amended the Citizenship Act, 1955 by providing a path to Indian citizenship for illegal immigrants of Hindu , Sikh , Buddhist , Jain , Parsi , or Christian religion, who had fled persecution from Pakistan , Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 2014. Muslims from those countries were not given such eligibility. The act
14544-480: The largest party in parliament. Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister but was unable to attain a majority in the Lok Sabha, forcing the government to resign after 13 days. A 2009 report , authored by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan , found that 68 people were responsible for the demolition, mostly leaders from the BJP. Among those named were Vajpayee, Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi . The report also criticised Kalyan Singh , Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh during
14688-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar
14832-480: The leader of the Jana Sangh, was appointed the Minister of External Affairs . The national leadership of the former Jana Sangh consciously renounced its identity, and attempted to integrate with the political culture of the Janata Party, based on Gandhian and Hindu traditionalist principles. Political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot wrote that this proved to be impossible assimilation. The state and local levels of
14976-399: The mosque. Three days of fighting with the paramilitary forces ended with the deaths of several kar sevaks . Hindus were urged by VHP to "take revenge" for these deaths, resulting in riots against Muslims across Uttar Pradesh. The BJP withdrew its support from the V.P. Singh government, leading to fresh general elections. The BJP further increased its tally to 120 seats, and won a majority in
15120-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this
15264-407: The next ten years, the BJP was the principal opposition party. Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat , led the party to a landslide victory in the 2014 general election . Modi has since led the NDA government as Indian prime minister, including being re-elected with a sole majority in the 2019 general election and with a coalition in the 2024 general election . As of December 2023,
15408-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows
15552-417: The party is predominantly saffron with a stripe of green in the left. Within the Saffron part of the flag, the lotus symbol is also integrated. This particular colour scheme used in the flag assists the party to project itself as a secular party. Meanwhile, this also helps the party to maintain a religious undertone for its core electorate and Hindu nationalistic supporter groups . The BJP's origins lie in
15696-558: The party like Lal Krishna Advani , Murli Manohar Joshi , and Jaswant Singh amongst others were allegedly sidelined. In 2016, the BJP joined the International Democratic Union , a grouping of various centre-right and right-wing political parties across the globe. However, as of 2024, the party is no longer a member, the secretary general of the IDU, Tina Mercep, stated that they would welcome full membership of
15840-466: The party of government in Assam. The Modi administration passed a citizenship law in 2019 which provided a pathway to Indian citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from Afghanistan , Bangladesh and Pakistan who are Hindus , Sikhs , Buddhists , Jains , Parsis or Christians . The law does not grant such eligibility to Muslims . This was first time religion had been overtly used as
15984-411: The period 1998–2004 introduced significant deregulation and privatisation of government-owned enterprises. It also introduced tariff-reducing measures. These reforms built off of the initial economic liberalisation introduced by the P. V. Narasimha Rao-led Congress government in the early 1990s. India's GDP growth increased substantially during the tenure of the NDA. The 2004 campaign slogan India Shining
16128-413: The philosophy of integral humanism , which formed the official doctrine of the party. Younger leaders, such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani also became involved with the leadership in this period, with Vajpayee succeeding Upadhyaya as president in 1968. The major themes on the party's agenda during this period were legislating a uniform civil code , banning cow slaughter and abolishing
16272-578: The political spectrum, including the Socialist Party , the Congress (O) and the Bharatiya Lok Dal to form the Janata Party, with its main agenda being defeating Indira Gandhi. The Janata Party won a majority in 1977 and formed a government with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister. The former Jana Sangh contributed the largest tally to the Janata Party's parliamentary contingent, with 93 seats or 31% of its strength. Vajpayee , previously
16416-416: The popularity of Modi, and the loss of support for the Congress due to the corruption scandals in its previous term. The BJP was also able to expand its traditionally upper-caste, upper-class support base and received significant support from middle-class and Dalit people, as well as among Other Backward Classes . Its support among Muslims remained low; only 8% of Muslim voters voted for the BJP. The BJP
16560-565: The recollections of Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi, the 68th head of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham , as told to a disciple in 1978. According to the Government, upon being asked by Lord Mountbatten about a symbol to mark the transfer of power, Nehru discussed the issue with his fellow Congress leader C. Rajagopalachari , who informed Nehru of the Chola tradition of the transfer of the sengol and with his agreement, approached
16704-420: The remnants of India's colonial past, but also increasingly to replace the secular governance that followed it". Others found the use of a monarchical relic unsuitable for a parliamentary democracy. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by
16848-412: The role of Jawaharlal Nehru , and glorifying that of Modi himself, while also portraying Indian society as harmonious, without conflict or inequity. The BJP supports a uniform civil code , which would apply a common set of personal laws to every citizen regardless of their personal religion, replacing the existing laws which vary by religious community. Historian Yogendra Malik writes that this ignores
16992-410: The seer of Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam Matha to make one. A delegation of monks flew to Delhi to present this sengol first to Mountbatten and then to Nehru in an official ceremony. These claims are dubious. There is no evidence either Mountbatten or Rajagopalachari was involved in the process, that the ceremony had any official significance, that Nehru perceived the event as a transfer of power, or that
17136-561: The slogan " India Shining ", which sought to depict it as responsible for a rapid economic transformation of the country. However, the NDA unexpectedly suffered a heavy defeat, winning only 186 seats in the Lok Sabha , compared to the 222 of the Congress and its allies. Manmohan Singh succeeded Vajpayee as Prime Minister as the head of the United Progressive Alliance . The NDA's failure to reach out to rural Indians
17280-476: The socio-political implications of his acceptance. He warned the motive of the Adheenam was to convince the public later they had inaugurated the new government. Many political analysts have noted the increasing use of Hindu grammar in the domains of the state. In 2023, The New York Times noted that this sceptre emerged as a key object encapsulating the meaning of the new Parliament, that is, "to shed not just
17424-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but
17568-545: The start of a new era. The temple is expected to be fully completed by December 2024. A coalition of regional parties formed the government in 1996, but this grouping was short-lived, and mid-term polls were held in 1998. The BJP contested the elections leading a coalition called the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), which contained its existing allies like the Samata Party , the Shiromani Akali Dal ,
17712-441: The states of Assam and West Bengal, threatens the security, economy and stability of the country. Academics have pointed out that the BJP refers to Hindu migrants from Bangladesh as refugees, and reserves the term "illegal" for Muslim migrants. Academic Michael Gillan perceived it as an attempt to use an emotive issue to mobilise Hindu sentiment in a region where the party has not been historically successful. The party later became
17856-451: The textbooks used in Indian schools. Various scholars have stated that this revision, especially in the case of history textbooks, was a covert attempt to " saffronise " Indian history. The NDA government introduced Hindu astrology as a subject in college curricula, despite opposition from several leading scientists. Links between the BJP and the RSS grew stronger under the Modi administration. The RSS provided organisational support to
18000-579: The violence, as were police officers who allegedly directed the rioters and gave them lists of Muslim-owned properties. In April 2009, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate and expedite the Gujarat riots cases. In 2012, Modi was cleared of complicity in the violence by the SIT. BJP MLA Maya Kodnani , who later held a cabinet portfolio in the Modi government,
18144-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in
18288-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,
18432-570: Was also established and put under the CDS. The historical stance of the BJP towards foreign policy , like the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, was based on an aggressive Hindu nationalism combined with economic protectionism. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded with the explicit aim of reversing the partition of India ; as a result, its official position was that the existence of Pakistan was illegitimate. This antagonism toward Pakistan remains
18576-421: Was also very successful at mobilizing its supporters and raising voter turnout among them. After winning the election, the organisation of the BJP became more centralised with Modi at the helm. People loyal to Modi were rewarded leadership positions across various states within India. Amit Shah , a close confidant of Modi, was appointed as the president of the BJP in 2014. Contextually, many veteran leaders of
18720-735: Was appointed president of the party, and under him it became the political voice of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In the early 1980s, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) began a campaign for the construction of a temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Rama at the disputed site of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya . The mosque had been constructed by the Mughal Emperor Babur in 1527. There is a dispute about whether
18864-465: Was based on the party's belief that the free market would bring prosperity to all sectors of society. After its unexpected defeat, commentators said that it was punished for neglecting the needs of the poor and focusing too much on its corporate allies. This shift in the economic policies of the BJP was also visible in state governments, especially in Gujarat, where the BJP held power for 16 years. Modi's government, in power from 2002 to 2014, followed
19008-600: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are
19152-477: Was convicted of having orchestrated one of the riots and sentenced to 28 years imprisonment; she was later acquitted by the Gujarat High Court . Scholars such as Paul Brass , Martha Nussbaum and Dipankar Gupta have said that there was a high level of state complicity in the incidents. Vajpayee called for early elections in 2004 , six months ahead of schedule. The NDA's campaign was based on
19296-540: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of
19440-489: Was elected to succeed Mukherjee; however, he was forced out of power by the RSS activists within the party, and the leadership went instead to Upadhyaya. Upadhyay remained the General Secretary until 1967, and worked to build a committed grassroots organisation in the image of the RSS. The party minimised engagement with the public, focusing instead on building its network of propagandists. Upadhyaya also articulated
19584-841: Was later repealed by the Congress-led UPA government in 2004. The Modi government has conducted several strikes on territory controlled by neighbouring countries on counterterrorism grounds. This included a 2015 Indian counter-insurgency operation in Myanmar against the National Socialist Council of Nagaland , the 2016 Indian Line of Control strike in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and the 2019 Balakot airstrike in Pakistan. It also militarily intervened in defence of Bhutan during
19728-528: Was moved to its present location upon the building's inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2023. As the Independence of India drew near, Jawaharlal Nehru and other members of the Indian National Congress (INC or Congress) took part in religious ceremonies and received gifts. On such an occasion on 14 August 1947, emissaries from the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam Matha , a Hindu monastery in Tamil Nadu, presented Nehru with
19872-433: Was provided as an explanation for its defeat, as was its divisive policy agenda. In May 2008, the BJP won the state elections in Karnataka . This was the first time that the party won assembly elections in any South Indian state. In the 2009 general elections , its strength in the Lok Sabha was reduced to 116 seats. The election campaign would be the final for Advani as leader. The party would be led by Arun Jaitley in
20016-403: Was seen as an attack upon Hindus, and sparked off massive anti-Muslim violence across the state of Gujarat that lasted several weeks. The death toll estimated was as high as 2000, while 150,000 were displaced. Rape, mutilation, and torture were also widespread. The then-Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and several high-ranking government officials were accused of initiating and condoning
20160-526: Was successful in ousting them from the previously Indian-controlled territory. After the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, the NDA government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act . The aim of the act was to improve the government's ability to deal with terrorism. It initially failed to pass in the Rajya Sabha ; therefore, the NDA took the extraordinary step of convening
20304-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil
20448-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined
20592-573: Was the first time religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law . A report by the V-Dem Institute described India as experiencing democratic backsliding due to the Modi era . Various other studies and media sources also cite India experiencing democratic backsliding. This is considered the most notable challenge to India's democracy since the authoritarian Emergency years of 1975–77. The party along
20736-434: Was unsuccessful, as it won only two Lok Sabha seats in the elections of 1984 . The assassination of Indira Gandhi a few months earlier resulted in a wave of support for the Congress which won a record tally of 414 seats, contributing to the low number for the BJP. The failure of Vajpayee's moderate strategy led to a shift in the ideology of the party toward a policy of more hardline Hindu nationalism. In 1984, Advani
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