Chennai: Coming down heavily on the recent changes made by the UPSC in the civil services exams, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urging him to withdraw the changes, saying that these were “highly discriminatory”, “retrogade” and appear to be calculated to “bias” the system against civil service aspirants from non-Hindi speaking regions of the country. The four major changes in the pattern of examination adversely affect the interests of thousands of students from Tamil Nadu, particularly those from the rural backgrounds, she said in her strongly-worded letter. Students who pursued Tamil as their medium of education up to the high school level and who had subsequently done their graduation in English medium had earlier the option of writing the examination in Tamil, Jayalalithaa noted. The option has been removed with a new stipulation that the main exam, including optional papers, can be written in Tamil only if the candidates have studied in that medium up to the graduation level. “However, there was no such stipulation for candidates who wish to appear in the Hindi medium,” she pointed out. It was a clear discrimination considering that Tamil and Hindi are languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution, she said. “This is violative of articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.” The chief minister termed as “illogical” the decision of UPSC pertaining to the candidates wanting to opt for the literature of a language as their optional paper that they can do so only if they had studied the literature of the language at the graduation level as the main subject. Jayalalithaa also criticised the changes relating to choosing literature of a language as optional paper, minimum requirement of 25 candidates for writing the examination in a particular language and inclusion of an English composition and précis writing section as an evaluated portion of essay paper, instead of qualifying English. The changes made by the UPSC are invidious, unfair and against the federal nature of our polity and the constitutional equality bestowed upon regional languages, the chief minister added.
