Mother Tamil statue

            Chief Minister Jayalalithaa announced in the Assembly said that, a statue for ‘Mother Tamil’ will be installed in Madurai at a cost of Rs. 100 crore, and it will be on the lines of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Ms.  Jayalalithaa also told the House that a park, representing the five agro-climatic zones of the traditional Tamil country, would be formed there. The landscape in ancient Tamil literature is classified into these five zones, which form the backdrop and milieu of the writings.

Vandiyur tank in Madurai is the most likely site for the proposed statue. This is not the first time that Mother Tamil, a personification of the Tamil language, gets a statue. During the valedictory of the fifth World Tamil Conference in Madurai in January 1981, the then Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran unveiled one.