“We would like to thank each and every donor, volunteer and community group who contributed to this historic initiative.”

Photo by Joseph Burrell.

Tamil people represent one of the major ethnolinguistic groups of South Asia. The ancient Tamil language, with over 80 million speakers worldwide, has a linguistic and literary history dating back more than 2,000 years. Tracing their ancestry to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, as well as the island nation of Sri Lanka, Tamils in recent decades have emigrated to countries around the globe – including Canada, which is home to the largest Tamil community outside the Indian subcontinent.

Of the roughly quarter-million Tamils in Canada, over 80% live in the Greater Toronto Area, largely in the eastern suburbs. It’s therefore no surprise that many of the 14,000 students at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) are of Tamil heritage. “A lot of Tamil students want to learn their history,” says Kanitha Uthayakumar, a recent graduate who was active in the Tamil Students Association at UTSC. “Having the opportunity to study the Tamil language at the university level will be great for all of us who are proud of our heritage.”

In 2018, those widely shared aspirations turned into an organized initiative aimed at bringing Tamil studies to UTSC. The grassroots campaign reached out to individuals, businesses, governments and community groups. While fundraising efforts focused primarily on surrounding communities, they also attracted philanthropic support from as far away as France, Australia and Malaysia. And by early 2021, the campaign had achieved its ambitious target of $3 million to endow a Chair in Tamil Studies – the first of its kind in Canada.

The next step was to find the right candidate to take on this unique role. The intensive global search led to Dr. Sidharthan Maunaguru of the National University of Singapore, a highly regarded expert on Tamil communities whose research combines anthropology, history and philosophy. “I’m honoured,” says Prof. Maunaguru, who will officially join the UTSC faculty in May 2024. “Scholars at U of T have already set a solid foundation for Tamil studies. As chair, I will be building on these foundations while expanding scholarship and research by bringing an interdisciplinary approach. My vision is to ground, create and promote thriving Tamil scholarship and research in an ethos of inclusiveness and diversity that will bring Tamil scholars from across the world to Canada.”

For the community members who contributed to this collective effort, seeing thousands of individual contributions become a lasting endowment has been enormously gratifying. “We are proud to establish a Tamil Chair at Canada’s most prestigious university and in particular at its Scarborough campus, in a part of our great city that is home to a large Tamil population,” says campaign co-chair Sivan Ilangko, past-president of the Canadian Tamil Congress and a director of Tamil Chair, Inc. “We would like to thank each and every donor, volunteer and community group who contributed to this historic initiative.”

Bringing a legend to life

The Legend of Ponnivala Nadu is a Tamil epic that follows several farming families over three generations as they contend with famines, curses, power struggles and interventions from various Hindu deities. Passed down via oral tradition, especially in the villages of western Tamil Nadu, the story depicts the gods’ efforts to uphold a set of moral principles while ensuring cosmic balance, fairness and wellbeing.

This landmark of Tamil literature was brought to life for modern-day audiences in 2022 through the inaugural Sophia Hilton Storytelling Fellowship from the U of T Scarborough Library. Three students – Shajaky Parameswaran, a neuroscience major; Raina Daniel, a philosophy and media studies major; and Christy Lorentz, a journalism and English major – spent eight months exploring the art of storytelling, then shared a reimagined version of the epic tale with students, faculty and the broader public, including many appreciative members of the Tamil community.

The yearlong fellowship, which provides each qualifying student with $4,000 in support, was made possible by a donation from the Sophia Hilton Foundation, a charity led by UTSC Professor Brenda Beck. An anthropologist who specializes in Tamil folklore, Prof. Beck spent six decades doing research in Tamil Nadu. Her commitment to preserving and promoting Tamil culture inspired her to make several one-time gifts to UTSC, followed by an endowment of more than $300,000 to fund the fellowship.

“My passion is to help make The Legend of Ponnivala Nadu relevant to Tamil-Canadians so that many more students whose families have roots in this cultural area can feel proud of their unique, rich and (to date) largely unknown folk heritage,” says Prof. Beck, who also donated a substantial amount toward the Chair in Tamil Studies. “This story deserves recognition in the same class as any of the great epics.”

The Chair in Tamil Studies and other endowed professorships at the University of Toronto are among the most significant academic appointments in Canada. They enable the university to engage respected educators and scholars from around the world, who in turn attract top talent, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and early/mid-career faculty. Disbursements in support of chairs and professorships accounted for about 29% of the total endowment funds held by the university as of April 30, 2023.*