Parasakthi starring Sivakarthikeyan in the lead is a Sudha Kongara-directed Tamil movie which releases on January 10, 2026 in theaters worldwide. The Parasakthi trailer was unveiled Sunday evening, and the video gives us a glimpse into the world, Sudha Kongara is bringing back to retell Tamil political history.
Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu - History
It all began in April 1938, when Congress party member Rajaji acting as Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister made Hindi a compulsory language in 125 secondary schools in the Madras Presidency, sparking state wide protests under Periyar. The Congress party (INC) itself was divided on the issue, and wanted Rajaji to make Hindi optional.
Periyar's Reason: Tamil-medium education is free in Tamil Nadu, and they are aimed at uplifting the economically downtrodden. In the 1930s, only the elite few had access and means to learn languages per will, and imposing Hindi, when the Tamil populace was already struggling with English (an existing mandatory subject in Tamil-medium schools), would have discouraged education, and resulted in school-dropouts.
Anti-Hindi sentiments also stemmed from Tamil linguistic identity being threatened, and Aryan languages like Hindi and Sanskrit replacing the Dravidian language Tamil.
Between 1946 and 1950, there were sporadic agitations against Hindi imposition in Tamil Nadu, and they amplified into widespread movements after India's independence in 1947. Under Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Official Languages Act of 1963 was passed, which announced the continuation of English as the official language of the Indian constitution. But the bill was opposed by DMK's founding member CN Annadurai citing a loophole that the bill does not assure English as the official language, but leaves room for English getting replaced with Hindi.
Annadurai's Reason: Hindi replacing English as the official language of India would have made the Tamil medium education redundant, as shown in the Parasakthi trailer.
In 1963, Annadurai and 500 DMK party members were jailed for spear-heading anti-Hindi protests in Tamil Nadu. After Jawaharlal Nehru's death in 1964, and the suggestion of three-language (English, Hindi, Tamil) formula in Tamil Nadu, the protests opposing language imposition gained momentum again. This lead to the widely-talked-about 1965 Anti-Hindi agitation, around which Parasakthi is based.
Agitation of 1965 & Pollachi Incident in Parasakthi Trailer
Under Tamil Nadu's last Congress Chief Minister, M. Bhaktavatsalam, Anti-Hindi agitations grew drastically owing to college students taking to the protests. On January 25, 1965 a clash between agitating students and Indian National Congress party workers in Madurai went out of control and became a riot, and spread throughout Tamil Nadu. Acts of arson, looting and damage to public property became common during this time and was carried on for 2 months since the Madurai incident.
While Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, and Trichy are often looked back as the Tamil Nadu cities that played host to incidents of the 1965 agitation, Sudha Kongara's Parasakthi trailer also highlights a Pollachi incident, during which the Congress government (both center and state) deployed the Indian Army to shoot-down 100s of protesting students, and mass-bury, mass-pyre their mortal remains. The lesser known Pollachi tragedy remains buried in history, and not many know of it even in Tamil Nadu.
நானும் பொள்ளாச்சி தான்.... இந்த பிரச்சனை அப்புறம் ஹிந்தி படுச்சா வேலை கிடைக்கும் நம்பி என் அம்மா ஹிந்தி படுச்சாங்க... கடைசியா டிப்ளமோ முடுச்சுட்டு ஹிந்தி டீச்சர் ஆ வேலைக்கு போனாங்க... சென்ட்ரல் govt. Job கிடைக்கும் நம்பி asst. என்ஜினீயர் job வேணா னு சொல்லிட்டாங்க... 🤧🤧🤧
— Muthukumaar M (@xfrommuthu) January 4, 2026
Parasakthi & Significance of Language Politics in 2026
Currently state-autonomy ensures that Hindi is not mandatory in school education in Tamil Nadu. However the ruling BJP-center since 2014 has been functioning as a Hindi-first India, attempting to erase even English as the binding language between Hindi and non-Hindi regions. This has resulted in language sentiments getting fiercer among the general public, and Tamil Nadu inspiring other Indian states like Karnataka, Kerala, Kashmir, to assert their regional language rights.
Reason for Current Opposition to Hindi Imposition: English language is what bridges the whole world, and erasing it from the Indian constitution is not only naïve but detrimental to the future of India's citizens.
Protection of Tamil—as a linguistic identity, its rich heritage as one of the world's oldest languages, and the autonomy that comes with a native language—is an equally important reason in the current opposition to the imposition of Hindi in Tamil Nadu.
Collateral damage of this language movement that Tamil Nadu is fierce about, is that the opposition to Hindi-imposition, is often misconstrued as hate for the Hindi language or people speaking it, even in 2026. In Parasakthi's trailer Sudha Kongara (with co-writer Arjun Nadesan), has ensured to clarify this political stance, while highlighting the significance behind its history.
Parasakthi is produced by Dawn Pictures, and is a distribution of Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin's Red Giant Movies. The movie stars Sivakarthikeyan as a central government employee, Ravi Mohan as a spine-chilling villain, Sreeleela as Sivakarthikeyan's bubbly love interest, and Atharvaa as a student protestor, and Sivakarthikeyan's younger brother.
Parasakthi also showcases Atharvaa as a victim of local police and Indian Army brutality during the 1965 anti-Hindi agitations, and Sivakarthikeyan taking his place in an avatar inspired by student leader P. Seenivasan, who in 1967 defeated the powerful Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Kamaraj in his Virudhunagar constituency.