Editorial: Breaking the language barrier

Does language unite or divide? International Mother Language Day, observed this week on February 21, brings to focus an interesting observation that 40% of the world’s population does not have access to education in a language that they speak or understand. 

The problem is amplified in India, which has over 19,500 languages spoken as mother tongue or dialects. Of this, there are 121 languages spoken by 10,000 or more people in the country. Among these 121 languages, 22 have been included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, while 99 are not part of the official languages. In India, which is becoming more urbanised with cities being marked by increasing numbers of migrant floating populations, it seems like a genuine problem that we haven’t addressed satisfactorily – standardising language as a medium of imparting education.

The futility of the Centre’s efforts to promote just one language, Hindi, as the lingua franca, might become visible when we consider the north-eastern States. Among these seven sister States, there are over 220 languages that are spoken by the populace, and members of various tribes. If the administration is serious about increasing representation of people from the north-east in various facets of public and political life, as well as mainstreaming them into the rest of India, gargantuan efforts would be required on the Centre’s part to bridge the language barrier and impart education to a whole new generation of youngsters who are born and brought up in the far reaches of India.

Here in Tamil Nadu, the State government has refused to implement the three language dictum proposed by the Centre’s National Education Policy 2020. Two years ago, Chief Minister MK Stalin, who was then the Opposition leader, had written to the PM, stating that the imposition of a trilingual education through Hindi would be akin to shoving a different identity down the throats of students in different States, and something they can’t relate to.

Those advocating the pros of the three language policy say the third language need not be Hindi, and could be any other regional language. But one just needs to look at the Budgetary allocations made in 2018-19 for the propagation of Hindi to know the resources directed towards this mission – Rs 50 cr. Even more confounding is the allocation made towards promoting Sanskrit between 2017-2020, a whopping Rs 643.84 cr which is as much as 22 times the collective sum of Rs 29 cr allocated for the five classical languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Odia. Similarly, the Centre’s spend on Tamil through the Central Institute of Classical Tamil has been depleting over the years. From Rs 10.59 cr in 2017-18, it’s come down to Rs 7.7 cr in 2019-20. Even in the Union Budget 2022, the funds allocated for promotion of Indian languages in 2022-23 has dipped to Rs 250 cr from Rs 561.47 cr in 2019-20.

The Finance Minister had announced last year that a National Language Translation Mission will be set up by the Centre to offer citizens a range of governance and policy related data in major Indian languages. This will also be applicable to science and tech-related content, which will push digitisation and digital content among the masses. Several technology and banking majors are also now waking up to the prospect of hyper localisation of languages as the key to drive adoption. Going forth, it’s essential that the States and the Centre arrive at a consensus regarding the manner in which languages can be employed to create value, as well as elevate the standard of living for millions of Indians through access to easy education. A policy that might only echo a majoritarian perspective is not the way to go for a nation with such deep-rooted diversity.