Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin completed four years in power, and to celebrate the feat, his party, DMK, published a full-page jacket ad in The Hindu, possibly the most-read English daily in the state. The move, however, yielded a different result after readers pointed out glaring grammatical mistakes in the proclamation.
A reader even shared a picture of the ad on X but blamed the publication for the error. It read: "Four years of appreciated governance! Let it continues for many years !! Four years achievement of Dravidian model government under the visionary leadership of Hon'able Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Thiru M.K. Stalin."
"Shri Kasturi Iyengar must be turning in his grave," wrote X user SS Iyengar (@Isriramseshadri). "Many people learnt English writing skills by reading The Hindu in the past. 'Appreciated' should have been 'Appreciable'. 'Let It Continues' should have been 'Let it Continue'. Dravida model DIPR needs language specialists," the businessman wrote, referring to the Indian independence activist, politician and journalist, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, who served as the managing director of publication from 1 April 1905 until his death in 1923.
But Iyenger's post went viral, with many X users hitting out at The Hindu for publishing the ad with incorrect English. Many of them assumed it to be a part of the newspaper's front page visuals.
"We were told to read The Hindu to improve our English... that newspaper is dead today. What a travesty for such a reputation," wrote Bharath Shankar (@bharath_shankar), resharing Iyenger's post. Another X user, Barath Raam (@RaamBarath), commented, "The state of this newspaper. Good thing we stopped it almost half a decade back."
It is, however, important to note that the mistake was made in the ad, the content for which is provided by the advertiser, DMK. Advertisements fall outside the editorial jurisdiction of the newspaper -- a fact that a few other users also pointed out.
"This copy is written by DIPR’s third-party agencies. I don’t think the newspaper writes these," investor Shyam Sekhar (@shyamsek) commented. Another user SanthanamVaidya (@sanvai), "[I] Think The Hindu has no role in this. It is an ad by DMK/TN govt! Should such 'English' things be taken up by the Editor with the advertiser?" "It's an advertisement! Advertisers make many spelling errors, and newspapers don't correct them; this is normal," Pavan Sathosh (@santhoo9) added.
Others slammed DMK for not checking the text before publishing the ad.
"Oxford English from MK Stalin. He could have used MS Word to correct the grammar, or whoever wrote this sentence. It takes seconds. FACEPALM!!!!" wrote Siddarth Kumar (@SiddarthKumar1). "All 'unpads' and 'unlettered' have done their great contribution for this 'ad' at the cost of the common man's tax money. If another consultative committee is to be formed, for educating them, to start from alphabet A, this too shall be borne by the taxpayers," commented X user @Chinmayadasa.
'The Hindu reads their ads before they post them'
The incident is reminiscent of a jibe The Hindu took at The Times of India in 2015 as it published a matrimonial advertisement in the rival media house's sister concern, Mumbai Mirror, which read: “WANTED a groom who reads Hindu. Because The Hindu reports the truth. The writing is crisp and brilliant. And they read their ads before they post them".
The incident happened after The Times of India decided to launch its edition in Chennai where The Hindu was the leading English daily.
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