Former IPS officer and current Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi during an event.
Tamil Nadu: After State Governor RN Ravi on Saturday asked college students to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ at a Madurai event, Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) called him an “RSS spokesperson”, accusing him of violating secular values.
During a recent event at Thiagarajar Engineering College in Madurai, a video went viral in which Ravi can be seen urging students to chant “Jai Shri Ram” to honour Tamil poet Kambar, who wrote the Kamba Ramayanam. “This gives us the confidence that our roots are strong. It is there, and we need to build on it. We take this as a movement,” he said before asking the students to chant the slogan after him. The students chanted “Jai Shri Ram” with him three times.
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Ravi was invited as the chief guest for the event to distribute prizes to the winners in a literary contest.
DMK spokesperson Dharanidharan asked, “Why does the governor time and again want to violate the Constitution? Why has he not resigned yet? He is an RSS spokesperson. We know how he violated the federal tenets of the country and how the Supreme Court has shown him his place.”
A landmark Supreme Court judgement on April 8 held RN Ravi’s decision to withhold assent to ten bills, some of which were pending since January 2020, as “illegal”. The top court had stated that any delay or inaction amounts to a constitutional breach.
Congress MLA JMH Aassan Maulana accused the Tamil Nadu governor of acting as a “propaganda master” of the RSS and the BJP, reported ANI. Maulana further accused Ravi of “promoting inequality” by speaking like a “religious leader”.
Controversy does not seem to leave Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi. At a recent event at Thiagarajar Engineering College in Madurai, where he was invited as the chief guest, he allegedly asked students to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’, while distributing prizes to the winners in a literary… pic.twitter.com/yvDIM5WylN
— The Siasat Daily (@TheSiasatDaily) April 13, 2025
Meanwhile, the State Platform for Common School System – Tamil Nadu (SPCSS), an organisation comprising educationists, demanded the immediate removal of Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi from his post for “violating his oath of office”.
In its statement, the organisation clarified that Ravi was invited as the chief guest in his capacity as the governor of the State of Tamil Nadu and not as “a preacher of a particular religion”.
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Condemning the governor’s conduct, the SPCSS stated that education is a secular activity where students shouldn’t be given any religious instructions. “He was not asked to give a religious sermon,” it added.
“Governor Ravi is illiterate in terms of his knowledge of the curriculum and syllabus followed in Tamil Nadu’s schools and colleges,” stated SPCSS, highlighting that Kamba Ramayanam was studied as literature and not religious scripture. In its statement, it also elaborated on how Tamil poets and writers have always engaged with themes from a variety of religious backgrounds, reflecting the state’s rich literary diversity.
