The agitations involve several mass protests, riots, student and political movements in Tamil Nadu concerning the official status of Hindi in the state.

[1] The first agitation was launched in 1937, to protest the introduction of compulsory teaching of Hindi in the schools of Madras Presidency by the first Indian National Congress (INC) government led by C. Rajagopalachari.

After India's independence from the United Kingdom, the adoption of an official language for the (to be) Republic was a hotly debated issue during the framing of the Indian Constitution.

On 25 January, a minor altercation between agitating students and INC party members triggered a full-scale riot in Madurai, eventually spreading all over the State.

Paramilitary involvement (on the request of the State government headed by INC) resulted in the deaths of about 70 people (by official estimates) including two policemen.

To calm the situation, the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri assured that English would continue as the official language as long as the non-Hindi States wanted.

When the Indian independence movement gained momentum in the early part of the 20th century, efforts were undertaken to make Hindi as a common language to unite linguistic groups against the British government.

On 11 August 1937,[11] within a month of coming to power, he announced his intention to introduce Hindi language teaching in secondary schools by issuing a policy statement.

In December 1937, Tamil Saivite scholars were among the first to announce their opposition to the Hindi teaching in the Saiva Sidhandha Maha Samaja conference at Velur.

The Congress government of Madras Presidency under Omandur Ramasamy Reddiar complied and made Hindi compulsory in the 1948–49 academic year.

It recommended a number of steps to eventually replace English with Hindi (the report registered "dissenting notes" from two members – P. Subbarayan from Madras State and Suniti Kumar Chatterji from West Bengal.

[50][51] The Parliamentary Committee on Official Language, chaired by Govind Ballabh Pant was constituted in September 1957 to review the Kher commission report.

The Kher Commission and the Pant Committee recommendations were condemned and opposed by self-described "non-Hindi" politicians like Frank Anthony and P. Subbarayan.

Speaking in the parliamentary debate on a bill introduced by Anthony to include English in the Eighth Schedule, Nehru gave an assurance to them (on 7 August 1959):[49] I believe also two things.

[56][57] On 15 July 1953, M. Karunanidhi (later Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu) and other DMK members erased the Hindi name in Dalmiapuram railway station's name board and lay down on the tracks.

On 28 January 1956, Annadurai along with Periyar and Rajaji signed a resolution passed by the Academy of Tamil Culture endorsing the continuation of English as the official language.

Shastri and his senior cabinet members Morarji Desai and Gulzari Lal Nanda were strong supporters of Hindi being the sole official language.

[41][76] The office bearers of the council were student union leaders from all over Madras State including P. Seenivasan, K. Kalimuthu, Jeeva Kalaimani, Na.

[41][79][80] The Home and Information & Broadcasting ministries of the central government (headed by Nanda and Indira Gandhi respectively) upped the ante and issued circulars for replacing English with Hindi from 26 January.

Chief minister Bhaktavatsalam warned that the state government would not tolerate the sanctity of the Republic day blasphemed and threatened the students with "stern action" if they participated in politics.

[82] On 26 January, 50,000 students from Madras city's colleges marched from Napier park to the Government secretariat at Fort St. George and unsuccessfully tried to petition the chief minister.

Within the Congress, opinion was divided: one group led by K. Kamaraj wanted the government not to impose Hindi on the Tamils; but others like Morarji Desai did not relent.

[96] Efforts to amend the Official Languages Act according to Shastri's assurances given in February 1965 faced stiff resistance from the pro-Hindi lobby.

In April 1965, a meeting of a cabinet sub-committee comprising Gulzari lal Nanda, A. K. Sen, Satyanarayan Sinha, Mahavir Tyagi, M. C. Chagla and S. K. Patil and but no southern members debated the issue and could not come to any agreement.

This Bill guaranteeing the use of English in inter-state and state-Union communications as long as desired by Non-Hindi states was approved for discussion by the Speaker on 25 August.

The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya program, supported fully by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, was established to identify gifted and talented students from economically disadvantaged and historically neglected communities, throughout every state and Union Territory in India and provide for them an education on par with elite residential schools traditionally available in India only for children of the wealthy as well as children of the political class.

On 13 November, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding the repeal of Part XVII of the constitution and for making English the sole official language of the union.

[113][114] Terming the move on use of Hindi as being "against letter and spirit" of the Official Languages Act the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa cautioned that this direction may "cause disquiet to the people of Tamil Nadu who are very proud of and passionate about their linguistic heritage", and asked the prime minister to suitably modify the instructions to ensure that English was the language of communication on social media.

[115] The major opposition party Indian National Congress advised prudence, expressing fear that such directions may result in a backlash in non-Hindi states, especially Tamil Nadu and also said that the "Government would be well-advised to proceed with caution".

In the words of Sumathi Ramaswamy (professor of history at Duke University),[119] [The anti-Hindi imposition agitations knit] together diverse, even incompatible, social and political interests ... Their common cause against Hindi imposition had thrown together religious revivalists like Maraimalai Atikal (1876–1950) with avowed atheists like "Periyar" Ramasami and Bharathidasan (1891–1964); men who supported the Indian cause like T.V.