When Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Annadurai enthralled students at Yale University

There is an apocryphal story that testifies to the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C.N. Annadurai’s [1909-69] command of English language. Anna, as he is fondly called, was at America’s Yale University as a Chubb Fellow in 1968 when he was asked to construct a sentence in English using the word “because” three times consecutively. Anna was said to have famously replied: “No sentence ends with because, because, because is a conjunction.”

This clever response, along with his speeches in the Rajya Sabha and his travel accounts from the United States, demonstrated the remarkable ease with which he handled the English language.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s scheduled address during an event at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2025 to mark the centenary of the Self-Respect Movement has provided an opportunity to recall Anna’s visit to Yale University on a Chubb Fellowship 57 years ago.

What is Chubb Fellowship?

The Chubb Fellowship was established in 1949. According to its website, each year, the Head of Timothy Dwight College at Yale names a select group of nationally and internationally distinguished individuals, recognised for their dedication to public service, to receive Yale’s highest honour for a visiting lecturer: the Chubb Fellowship.

The fellows include many heads of state, other national and international political leaders, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, and a wide range of highly accomplished individuals in business, non-profit management and the arts whose experiences and leadership have helped define the challenges of our times and the ways that we should seek to address them.

The Chubb Fellow usually makes a public address on a topic of special interest, open to the entire Yale and New Haven communities. Anna was offered the fellowship in 1968 and left for Yale on April 15, 1968. Incidentally, the university was named after Elihu Yale, who was the Governor of Madras from 1687 to 1692.

How was Anna’s Yale University visit conceived?

Anna’s biographer R. Kannan, in his book Anna: The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai, says the American Ambassador to India, Chester Bowles, had conceived of Anna’s visit to the United States. A Yale University press release had described Anna as “one of the few charismatic leaders in post-Nehruvian India, noted for his skill in developing public support for his policies.”

Mr. Kannan recorded some of Anna’s memorable replies during his time at Yale. When asked about his earlier opposition to the Congress Party, Anna quipped: “Why! St. Paul too was once opposed to Christ.”

A report in The Hindu vouches for Annadurai’s eloquence and clarity of thought. The young Silliman College students, from one of Yale’s constituent colleges, appeared exhilarated by the post-lunch discussion with Anna, and one student spokesman called it “by far the best meeting of its kind we’ve ever had.”

N. Ram, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, who accompanied Anna in Washington D.C. during the sightseeing and attended his lectures, said the former Chief Minister stayed with G. Parthasarathy, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations. “I travelled from New York to Washington D.C. Anna made a very good speech and made it clear that he spoke for India though there were differences,” Mr. Ram recalled. The Hindu’s Washington D.C. correspondent Easwar Sagar reported Anna’s tour and his speeches.

According to The Hindu, at a reception given by Parthasarathi, Anna said: “If India’s unity is to be preserved and fostered, the only way is to avoid controversies for the next 25 years.”

“The language issue was the biggest controversy in India,” he told a group of Hindi and non-Hindi speaking young men who had surrounded and questioned him.

He said except for the Jan Sangh and the Socialist parties, Indian parties all agreed that English should continue for as long as the non-Hindi speaking people wanted, and that Parliament’s resolution about entry into the services, which placed an unfair burden on the non-Hindi speaking people, should be rescinded.

Tirukkural class at Yale

At the Yale University, Anna sat on a bench in the sunny courtyard of Timothy Dwight College and conducted a brief informal class on the Tirukkural.

The Hindu reported that Annadurai had carried many copies of an English translation of Tirukkural with him to present as gifts to American universities and colleges. As part of his Chubb Fellowship at the Yale University campus, Annadurai participated in a ‘Carry Your Own Tray’ luncheon with students of Silliman College, one of the constituent colleges of the University.

“Annadurai’s student hosts had thoughtfully anticipated his dietary preferences and so an ample variety of vegetarian dishes was available to him,” says The Hindu.

Mr. Kannan’s book also captures Anna’s stance on the Congress, which changed after the 1962 Indo-China war. “Indira Gandhi is ruling ably. Only on the issue of language has she taken a hasty decision. Other opposition parties have not grown to a stage where they could take up the responsibility of a government in Delhi. Therefore, as far as the nation’s future goes, I would like the Congress to return to power,” he said to a question on Congress rule. It is the current stance of the DMK as well.