SHILLONG:
The president of the Khasi Authors’ Society (KAS), D R L Nonglait, said that one of the factors responsible for the failure of the three-language formula in the North East is that languages of most states of the region, like Khasi and Mizo, which have had a very long literary tradition are not given due constitutional recognition.
The KAS has been demanding inclusion of Khasi language in the 8th Schedule to the Indian Constitution for more than four decades, but till now it is pending with the Ministry of Home Affairs.
He said that there is no scope for non-scheduled languages to get financial grants from the central financial agencies for translation of Hindi texts into those languages.
“Therefore, the thoughts and values that may be found in Hindi literature cannot be disseminated to the languages of this region,” Nonglait said.
He was speaking at the celebration of Hindi Diwas on the theme, “Importance of the three-language formula in the context of Northeast India” held at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU).
According to Nonglait, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 states, “There will be a major effort from both the Central and the state government to invest large number of language teachers…to satisfy the three-language formula in their respective states and also to encourage the study of Indian languages across the country”.
The KAS president urged NEHU to appeal to the central and the state governments to implement this provision sincerely by providing financial sanctions for appointment of Hindi teachers in schools across North East India.
He also appealed to the NEHU Vice-Chancellor, Prof Prabha Shankar Shukla, to appeal to the Centre to consider inclusion of Khasi and other languages of North East India in the 8th Schedule so that the people of the region do not feel neglected.
The KAS president also said that in the context of North East India, especially in the hill areas comprising a number of states and the hill areas of Assam, the teaching of Hindi has not been taken seriously, either by the state governments or by the Centre.
Later speaking on the sidelines, Nonglait said that although the Khasi language has been acknowledged as the state’s Associate Official Language, it is hardly ever used in the day-to-day operations of the various government departments.
Nonglait stated that the KAS will submit suggestions to the government urging it to designate Khasi as the state’s official language.
“Apart from English we need to make Khasi as the official language of the state like in the country where both Hindi and English are the official languages,” Nonglait added.