Thirukkural and Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speeches

Thiruvalluvar statue. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Thirukkural made a comeback in Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech after a four-year-gap on Saturday (February 1, 2025). She presented her eighth consecutive Budget this time.

Thirukkural is not new to Budget speeches. Former Union Minister P. Chidambaram used to quote from the book during his Budget speeches.

While presenting the Union Budget for 2025-26, Ms. Sitharaman quoted a couplet from Thirukkural while reading out on direct taxes, under Part B of her speech. Besides, she also read out a line from the Telugu poet Gurujada Apparao’s work, Desamunu Preminchumanna.

She read: “Reforms, however, are not a destination. They are a means to achieve good governance for our people and economy. Providing good governance primarily involves being responsive.” She said the Thirukkural captured the essence of it through the couplet: “Vaanokki vaazhum ulagellaam mannavan kolnokki vaazhum kudi (It means that citizens expect good governance like the live beings expect rains)“.

In 2021 she quoted , “Iyatralum eetalum kaathalum kaatha vaguthalum vallaththu arasu (It means A good king is one who is able to acquire wealth, guard it and distribute it justly)”.

In 2020, she quoted the Thirukkural: “Piniyinmai selvam vilaivinpam emam aniyenpa naattiv vaindhu (a country’s five jewels are unfailing health, farm productivity, joy, good defence and wealth)“. That year, she also quoted the Sangam-era Aathichoodi penned by Avvaiyar. She read: “Bhumi tiruthi unn (one must first till one’s land and then eat)”. This apart, she also quoted verses from a Kashmiri poem by Pandit Dinanath Koul and Raghuvamsa by Kalidasa.

Notably, during her maiden Budget speech in 2019 , Ms. Sitharaman she recited parts of the Sangam era work Purananuru . At the start of Part B of her speech, Ms. Sitharaman read the verses that were sung as an advice to the King Pandian Arivudai Nambi: “Kaai nel aruthu kavalang kolinae… arivudai vendhan neriyarindhu kolinae… parivuthaba edukkum pindam nachchin… yaanai pukka pulam pola, thamum unnaan ulagamum kedumae (a few mounds of rice from paddy that is harvested from a small piece of land would suffice for an elephant. But what if the elephant itself enters the field and starts eating? What it eats would be far lesser than what it would trample over)”.