Mann Ki Baat: PM Modi regrets not learning Tamil

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who included a few Tamil words in his speeches during his visit to poll-bound Tamil Nadu and Puducherry last week, said on Sunday that one of his regrets in life is that he did not make much effort over the years to learn this language.

In his monthly “Mann ki Baat” address, Modi referred to a question sent by a lady from Hyderabad on whether he felt something is amiss in his life after having been Prime Minister and Chief Minister of Gujarat for several years. He described the question as simple yet difficult.

“I pondered over this and told myself that one of my shortcomings was that I could not make much effort to learn Tamil, the oldest language in the world; I could not make myself learn Tamil! It is such a beautiful language, which is popular all over the world,” he said.


The Prime Minister maintained that several people have informed him about the quality of literature and depth of the poems written in Tamil.

During his visit to Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on February 2 5, Modi began his speech at the Coimbatore rally in Tamil and then switched over to English. His speech was translated into Tamil for the people. He began and ended all his speeches with the Tamil greeting Vannakkam.

With hardly any political presence in Tamil Nadu, BJP is banking on Modi’s charisma to reach out to the voters. Modi inaugurated or led the foundation stone of several development projects in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, a day before the Assembly election dates were announced.