 I'd like to congratulate my elder brother, Stalingi for the wonderful book that he has authored. It's been a long struggle for him, many, many years of struggle and I congratulate him on what he has done for the people of Tamil Nadu. Yesterday, my mother called me and she has sent a letter to Stalingi, so she called me and she told me that it is Stalingi's birthday tomorrow. And I said to my mother, I said, I know. I said, do you know how old Stalingi is? And my mother says, no. So I said, he's going to be 69 years old. And my mother said, that is impossible. So I said, I said, how old do you think he is? So she says, I think he must be 58 or 60. Afterwards, she googled. She does, she does Google these days. She Googles, Stalingi's age. And then she called me, she sent me a message, my God, you're right, he's 69 years old. So I don't know if it's in the book, but if it isn't, he has to write another book telling us how he manages to look so young. I'd like to thank Stalingi and all of you for inviting me here and giving me the honour to speak to you. It's always a pleasure for me to come to Tamil Nadu. And I don't mean that in a light way. I mean that in a very profound and deep way. Some days ago, I gave a speech in Parliament and I believe it was appreciated in Tamil Nadu. And as I was walking out of Parliament, these journalists, they tried to be clever all the time. As I was walking out of Parliament, one of the journalists asked me, you gave this speech, why did you mention Tamil Nadu so many times? And suddenly I realised that I had mentioned Tamil Nadu many times. And as I was walking out, without realising it, it came out of my mouth that, you know, I'm Tamil. Then I got in the car and I was thinking, but why did you say that? Why did those words come out of your mouth? You're not born in Tamil Nadu. You don't speak Tamil. Tamil is a 3,000-year-old civilisation. You don't even begin to understand that civilisation. How can you say you are Tamil? I asked myself, how have you given yourself the right to say that you are Tamil? And I was thinking this for some time in the car while I was driving home. And then I realised why I said those words. Because my blood is mixed with your soil. It was a very sad experience for me, losing a father. Very difficult experience, but also an experience I learnt from. And so I realised that I do have the right to call myself Tamil. Now, what does it mean to be a Tamil? The first thing it means is when I come to this state, I come with humility. I come bowing my head to your tradition, to your history, to your language. And I come with a desire to understand your perspective. In the speech I said, India is a union of states. So when we say state, what is a state? Where does it come from? It starts from the land. From the land come the people. From the people comes a voice. From the voice comes a language. From a language comes a culture. From a culture comes a history. And from a history comes a state. So when I say that India is a union of states, I am saying that the union of states come together to form India. Like, letters form a word. A word forms a sentence. And a sentence, sentences become a poem. If you do not respect the letters, you do not respect the words, you do not respect the sentences, you cannot respect the entire poem. So when the Prime Minister comes here and he tries to impose some other idea on the people of Tamil Nadu, when he does not understand that Tamil Nadu is just not two words. Tamil Nadu is 3000 years. Tamil Nadu is the land. Tamil Nadu is the people. Tamil Nadu is the language. Tamil Nadu is the words. He does not understand that. He insults the state and he insults our country. How can you take away the voice of the people of Tamil Nadu and then say to the people of Tamil Nadu that I respect you? When the people of Tamil Nadu repeatedly ask you and want to talk to you about need and you don't answer them, what type of respect is that? When the voice of Tamil Nadu says the GST is unfair, the GST harms productive states and you do not respond, who are you disrespecting? And I said in parliament they do not understand the history of Tamil Nadu, they do not understand the history of this nation. In 3000 years, in 3000 years nobody has been able to impose anything on the Tamil people. And in 3000 years from today nobody will be able to impose anything on the Tamil people. But I have experience of the Tamil people. You talk to them with love and affection, you can get anything out of them. You come here, you respect their culture, their language, you try to learn from them, they will give you nothing but love in return. It's a misunderstanding that the Prime Minister has and it is a misunderstanding that applies to all states of our union. My friend and colleague Omar spoke wonderfully today and he said probably the most important thing that was to be said today. And I want to repeat it here, we have to understand that for the first time since independence a state of the Indian Union had its powers taken away from it. It has never happened before that the rights of the people have been snatched from them. Today the people of Jammu and Kashmir do not rule themselves. Today bureaucrats from UP, from Gujarat rule Jammu and Kashmir. And that is the extreme what they have done to Jammu and Kashmir. In Punjab they have unilaterally taken land away from Punjab and given it to the BSF, hundreds of kilometers of land. Without any question, without any discussion and they do the same to Tamil Nadu. We always speak about unity from diversity. India has very very diverse people, diverse states, diverse languages. And historically India has taken advantage of this diversity. It's our biggest strength. I learn from the people of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu learns from the people of UP, Tamil Nadu learns from the people of Maharashtra. We learn from each other, we respect each other. So our vision is unity from diversity. And their vision is unity through conformity. You will conform to what we have to say. But who gave you the right? Who are you to decide what India should be? Why can't the people of India decide what India should be? Who has given you this honour? Why? So this is the central fight in our country today. The voice of our people is represented in our institutions. And systematically the voice of our people is being attacked. The judiciary, the election commission, the media, systematically one by one these things are being attacked. But the BJP should not be under any illusions. We know how to fight them. We are going to fight them. We are going to defeat them. Because they are fighting history. They are fighting tradition and they cannot defeat it. Once again, it's an honour for me to come here and say these words to you. I'd like to conclude by wishing Brother Stalin a very happy birthday tomorrow. And I've noticed he's trimmed down a lot. So he should eat properly the cake tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you.