Tamil Nadu

CM Stalin slams Tamil daily Dina Malar for distasteful headline on school meal scheme

The headline and the story suggest that due to the newly launched breakfast scheme alongside the existing mid-day meal programme, students were using the toilets more as they had ‘too much’ to eat.

Written by : TNM Staff

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development of Tamil Nadu Udhayanidhi Stalin have condemned a headline by Tamil daily Dina Malar in an article about the recently launched breakfast scheme for government school children in the state. The headline in question loosely translates to ‘Double meal for students, school toilets overflow.’ The headline and the story suggest that due to the newly launched breakfast scheme alongside the existing mid-day meal programme, students were using the toilets more as they had ‘too much’ to eat.

It is to be noted that the breakfast scheme was recently launched by CM Stalin after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) came to power. The scheme was announced in May of 2022 and was initially rolled out in 1,543 primary schools in September of the same year. Earlier in 2023, during the state budget session, the then Finance Minister Palanivel Thiyagarajan announced that the scheme is to be extended to all 30,122 government primary schools at a budget of 500 cores. The breakfast programme is currently only for students from Classes 1 to 5.

MK Stalin shared a picture of the newspaper with the headline and said that followers of Manu believed that one community should be able to eat without working and the other should work, but the Dravidian rule changed it. He added, “The Dravidian movement was created to protect social justice and embodied the concept that everyone is entitled to everything. The Dravidian rule destroyed the notion of ‘whatever you give the shudras, do not give them education alone’ and created a revolution by providing education for all. If sanatanam [a way of referring to the teachings of Hinduism] can create headlines like this during the era of launching Chandrayaan-3 to the moon, what must they have done 100 years ago? What would have been the condition of the oppressed? This violence has not disappeared yet.”

The edition of the newspaper which was shared by MK Stalin was from Salem where an article on the issue said that students are being fed breakfast at home as parents are worried that they might not get food at school. However, the article claimed that students have breakfast at school as well and this resulted in frequent toilet visits. In light of this, Dina Malar shared an alleged WhatsApp message shared with parents of students in a Trichy school where parents were asked to send their children to school without feeding them breakfast. The alleged message also said that students are using toilets frequently because of having two breakfasts and that parents should also train their children on how to use toilets.

After widespread criticism, Dina Malar issued a clarification saying that the controversial headline had not been published in districts like Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirunelveli and others where the paper is administered by K Ramasubbu. The headline was only carried in the regions such as Erode and Salem administered by R Sathyamurthy. Dina Malar is currently in the midst of a family tussle between the brothers Ramasubbu and Sathyamurthy. Administration of the newspaper is divided region-wise between the two of them.

Meanwhile, Udhayanidhi Stalin also responded to the headline. He said, “The Dravidian model will watch if education is overflowing. The Aryan model will watch if toilets are overflowing.” Udhayanidhi Stalin was taking a dig at the newspaper which has often taken a right-leaning stance.

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