On Thursday Meghalaya CM, Conrad Sangma underscored the need for a “political lobbying-push” to ensure the Khasi and Garo languages are included in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution.
“Political will and push has not come earlier. Process has started, but a lot of political lobbying and push needs to be done. There’s no doubt that this is an issue that has to be taken up at the political level,” Sangma said in the course of his reply on a Resolution moved by opposition Congress legislator, George Lyngdoh on the need for codification and standardization of Khasi and Garo languages in the assembly.
The Chief Minister said there are around 38 languages in the waiting list for their inclusion in the Eight Schedule, and in the earlier years, the process of taking this demand forward has not been forthcoming from the State.
On November 27, 2018, the Meghalaya Assembly passed a resolution to urge the centre to include Khasi and Garo languages in the Eight Schedule of the Constitution.
Stating that the exercise involves cost and is expensive, the Chief Minister said it would “give a strong and powerful message” to all different tribes and groups communities.
“The cost would be made up by the strong integration (message) that the inclusion of these languages would send across the country,” he said, adding that the State Government is continuously engaging with the centre and recently the matter was taken up with Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit to the state.
On the demand of Lyngdoh to codify, and standardize Khasi and Garo languages, the Chief Minister assured that the government will examine the issue thoroughly in a Committee by involving experts, especially authors from the Khasi Authors’ Society and Achik Literature Society.
Earlier, moving the resolution, Congress legislator Lyngdoh said it has become important for the State to prepare and embrace the challenges of linguistic variations, grammatical usages, spellings and lexicons that are prevalent in the Khasi and Garo languages.
He said that there should be official recognition of words where there is disparity in spellings.
“(In Khasi) there are variations in spellings and this has created confusion for literati, authors and students and common folks,” Lyngdoh said.
Moreover, he said the current platform of internet and social media have given several other opportunities and challenges that create this particular demand of online dictionaries and online translations of one’s own mother tongues.
“There is a need to put the languages in order as one anticipates the acceptance of the resolution taken by the Meghalaya Assembly on November 27, 2018,” the Congress legislator said.
Therefore, he underscored the need to start engaging with the literati, authors, teachers, students and religious heads to ensure a concrete exercise is done.
Lyngdoh stated that when Khasi and Garo languages get recognised, they will be used in various examinations of the central governments like the UPSC even as he added that currently these are being used as a teaching medium in Lower Primary and Upper Primary schools.
“Therefore, it becomes much more important for us to streamline our languages. The correct usage of the languages in the Assembly, in courts, administration, in education, in business, in media and various other platforms will strengthen their usage,” he added.
Senior Congress legislator, Dr. Mazel Ampareen Lyngdoh said that several extensive exercises were taken in the past for inclusion of Khasi language in the past.
Dr. Ampareen also sought to know what steps has been taken by the current government to ensure the Garo language is also presented as one language, one dialect which can be upgraded into a language status and included it in the Eight Schedule.
Following the assurance given by the Chief Minister, Lyngdoh withdrew the resolution with a condition that the matter would be taken in a Committee of the government.
