The name Tamil Nadu has not changed in one day. Sankaralingam, a Congress man who was behind the first demand to change the name, in the 1950s, made repeated representations. But its Anna Durai from Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam achieved it.
It is noted that Sankaralinganar fasted for 76 days, which resulted in his death on October 13, 1956. Sankaralinganar’s death further spurred on the fight for renaming the state.
The DMK emphasized its demand for such a change on entering the Assembly on May 7, 1957. But just 42 votes in favor of the resolution and it was defeated. However, the DMK continued to represent this demand.
On January 30 1961, the Socialist Party legislator Chinna Durai brought a resolution in Assembly to change the name from ‘Madras State’. In order to win that resolution, he requested that the ruling party members vote in its favor. This led to Chief Minister Kamaraj postponing the discussion on the demand for a month. Anna led DMK boycotted the Assembly for three days protesting against the delay.
Bhupesh Gupta, a leading luminary of the Communist movement in India, had been an indefatigable Parliamentarian. He had moved a number of Private members’ Bills. The 26th amendment to the Constitution to abolish privy purses and the 61st amendment to the Constitution to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 years became possible thanks to Gupta’s Private Members’ Bill along with his colleagues. And it did not surprise anyone when he moved a Constitution (Amendment) Bill to change the Madras State to Tamil Nadu on March 10, 1961.
In response to the bill congress man replied “About five hundred years ago there was no United Tamil Nadu and only Chera, Chola, and Pandya kingdoms. Such a demand cannot be historically justified.” Then Rajya Sabha MP Anna replied, “Anna pointed out the usage of the term ‘Tamil Nadu’ in ancient literature including Paripadal, Pathitrupattu, Mani- mekalai, Silapathigaram and the works of Kamban and Sekhizar.”
An MP then asked Anna how the State could profit from such a name change. To counter this, Anna asked how the country had benefited by the change of the President’s post to Rashtrapati or the Lower House to the Lok Sabha. He stressed that the name of the state and it's capital ought to be different. However, the Bill was defeated due to the enormous strength of the Congress party in Parliament.
On July 18, 1967, Chief Minister Anna prepared a resolution to change the name of Madras State to Tamil Nadu in English and Tamil languages. Speaking on the debate, Opposition Leader P.G. Karuthiraman said, “Madras is a name in world history; Tamil Nadu will take time to reach the same heights”. So, he suggested that the name should be ‘Tamil Nadu-Madras State’. However, at one point in the debate, Tamil Nadu was accepted and the resolution passed unanimously. Anna uttered “Tamil Nadu” three times and this was loudly cheered by legislators. Anna recognized the contributions of Thiyagi Shankaralingam who died after going on a hunger strike and Ma. Po. Sivagnanam in the formation of Tamil Nadu. Anna said, “We are not an independent country because of the name change, our State will be a part of India.” He also made it clear that the Tamil Nadu Secretariat would be the “Tamil Nadu Government Secretariat” and the nameplate was set up at Fort St. George accordingly.
On January 14, 1969, Madras State was officially renamed Tamil Nadu State.
