TN government school, college hostels to be called 'social justice hostels', says CM Stalin

CHENNAI: The state-run hostels for poor school and college students will henceforth be called ‘social justice hostels’ Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin announced on Monday. There would not be discrimination of any kind, including gender or caste under the DMK rule, which was based on the principle of social justice and inclusion, he said and added that the state government’s programmes were all oriented towards this lofty goal.

“School and college hostels for students being operated by various departments across Tamil Nadu will henceforth be called ‘social justice hostels.' There won’t be any sort of discrimination,” the Chief Minister said in a statement here. He recalled that he had in the state assembly announced that the term ‘colony’ used to refer to a caste would be removed from official records.

"Since it has become a symbol of dominance, a symbol of untouchability and a slang word, steps will be taken to remove this word from government documents and public domain, I had announced,” the Chief Minister explained.

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Stalin reiterated his plea to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to amend the SC/ST community names ending with ‘N’ and ‘A’ to replace ‘R’ to restore dignity. He further said that a government order was issued on behalf of the School Education Department on June 25, stipulating measures to prevent caste and communal conflict, and differences among school students and develop harmony and virtues among them.

The state government constituted a commission under retired Justice K Chandru to study ways to prevent caste conflicts in schools and the panel made various very important recommendations, including removing caste prefixes and suffixes in school names, which the government accepted.

There are 2,739 government hostels throughout the state accommodating 1,79,568 students and they are being run by Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department, besides Backward Classes and Minority Welfare Department.