Chennai, Oct 18 (Reporter) Hours after Chief Minister MK Stalin strongly condemned it and urged the Centre to immediately recall the Governor for deliberately insulting the State and the people of Tamil Nadu for disrespecting Mother Prayer Song Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu, Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi on Friday night termed it as a 'racist remark' on Friday night. Mr Ravi graced the commemoration of the Hindi Month Valedictory function and the commemoration of the Golden Jubilee Celebration by Doordarshan Chennai at the DD premises where the controversy arose. In a clarification statement posed in X, Mr Ravi also said such unfortunately cheap racist remark lowers the dignity of the office of the Chief Minister. He also said that Mr Stalin knew well that he recite full Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu at every function and do so with reverence, pride and precision. Mr Ravi said he was constrained to respond since Mr Stalin rushed to public with his racist remarks and false imputations, after condemnations poured in for the incident and the DD also issuing a clarification statement terming it as an inadvertent due to distraction while rendering the son and also tendering an apology to the Governor for the inconvenience caused to him. Strongly condemning, Mr Stalin asked Will the Governor, suffering from Dravidian allergy, dare to allow singing of the national anthem skipping the word Dravidam from it? In the guise of celebrating Hindi, he is denigrating the unity and integration of the country and its different ethnicities” . It may be recalled that Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu is the most reverred invocation song in Tamil traditionally and customarily recited at the start of all official and other functions and also National Anthem at the end of the event. The Tamil Thai Vazthu is an invocation composed by renowned Tamil poet P Meenakshisundaram in 1891 and was made mandatory to be sung at the commencement of public functions and events – Government and educational institutions - by the Karunanidhi government in 1970. The present DMK government of Stalin, in December 2021 had declared it as the State Anthem’, making it mandatory for all to stand except the disabled while it is being recited. He had also directed that playing audio record of the same has been barred and instead trained singers should sing it. The decision to declare it as the state anthem was taken in the wake of it not sung at the convocation at IIT-Madras. And making everyone stand while it is sung followed a Madras High Court order which said there is no executive order or statutory rule to enforce it. The judgement was in a case related to Kanchi Sankaracharya, Vijayendra Saraswati remaining seated while the song was sung in 2018. At the DD event, those who were singing it allegedly fumbled and skipped the entire line "Tekkaṇamum atihiṟciṟantha Dravidanal Tirunadum" (meaning the ideal Dravidian land, the pride of Deccan’ ) that contained the word Dravidam. The Governor too was seen singing it. Later, addressing the audience, Ravi, known to debunk the Dravidian ideology as an expired one, said there have been secessionist attempts for the past 50 years in Tamil Nadu. (ED : PICKUP SUITABLY FROM EARLIER SERIES)...////...