From a cruise on the Ganga to a tour of the age-old ghats, Tamil cuisine, classical music, folk dances, and a trip to cities like Ayodhya and Prayagraj: between November 17 and December 16 the ‘Kashi-Tamil Sangamam’, a month-long festival, is being organised by the ministry of education in Varanasi (also known as Kashi), Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency.

“The idea of the festival originated from the PM himself. The two regions have a lot of connect and commonalities rooted in their heritage, spiritual origins, trade, education, and economy from ancient times. This event aims to manifest the shared culture and history of the two regions and showcase their oneness despite being located at two different ends of the country. The festival will allow an exchange of ideas, knowledge, and best practices across different sectors through seminars, workshops, trips, and tours around the city,” said Chamu Krishna Shastry, head of the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti or the high-powered committee for promotion of Indian languages, which is organising the event along with other Centre-state organisations at Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

The festival — ‘Sangamam’, which means ‘coming together’ in Tamil — is the first such event being organised as part of the ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ initiative under the larger implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, to celebrate the age-old links between Kashi, known as the world’s oldest city, in north India, and the Tamil civilisation in the south. The event comes close to when the PM is touring southern states including Tamil Nadu ahead of the parliamentary polls due in 2024, clearly to bridge the north-south divide.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras) and BHU are the two nodal implementing agencies for the event which will see around 2,500 delegates from different institutions from Tamil Nadu come down in 12 different batches to Varanasi. “Each of these will be a homogenous group of around 200 members who will be staying here over an eight-day period including the travel to and fro. The groups represent sectors — students, teachers, entrepreneurs, writers (literature), culture, traders, artisans, heritage, rural, temple, spiritual, and professionals,” said Shastry.

Almost every other village in Tamil Nadu has a Shiva temple. In ancient times, people from the south would come down to Kashi to visit the deity’s temple here and take a shivling back, as well as for higher studies, trade, and textiles, he said.

Three special coaches are being attached to the trains ferrying the delegates to Varanasi, which will depart from three points — Rameswaram, Chennai, and Coimbatore — thrice a week for the event, he added.

The participants will be taken around the city’s major points of heritage including the Vishwanath corridor, Sarnath, boat rides on the river Ganga, a tour along the ghats, mutts, and trade centre of the textiles ministry. It will also include a visit to the house of Subramania Bharati, the famous Tamil poet and writer, who used to live here along the Hanuman Ghat during his studies.

The evenings will have cultural performances by artists from Tamil Nadu. There will be food and sales stalls specialising in Tamil cuisine and ancient recipes besides textiles and handicrafts from the region, which shall be open to the general public.

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