NEW DELHI :
THE Union Cabinet on Thursday approved conferring the
status of classical language to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit,
Assamese and Bengali languages.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet
chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“This is a historical decision and this decision goes very
well with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the NDA
Government’s philosophy of taking ride in our culture, taking pride in our heritage and taking pride in all the Indian
languages and the rich heritage that we have,” Information
and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said at a
Cabinet briefing.
The classical languages serve as a custodian of Bharat’s profound and ancient cultural heritage,
embodying the essence of each community's historical and
cultural milestone, the government said.
The Government of India decided to create a new category of languages as ‘classical languages’ on October 12, 2004
declaring Tamil as classical language and thereafter Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia languages
were given classical language status.
A Government statement said that a proposal from the
Maharashtra Government in 2013 was received in the ministry requesting classical language status to Marathi, which
was forwarded to the Linguistics Experts Committee (LEC).
The LEC recommended Marathi for classical language.
During the inter-ministerial consultations on the draft
note for Cabinet in 2017 for conferring classical status to
the Marathi language, the MHA advised to revise the criteria and make it stricter. The PMO vide its comment stated that the Ministry may conduct an exercise to find out
how many other languages are likely to become eligible.
It said that in the meantime, proposals from Bihar, Assam
and West Bengal was also received for conferring status of
classical language to Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali.
Accordingly, the Linguistics Experts Committee (under
Sahitya Akademi) in a meeting on July 25, 2024 unanimously
revised the criteria as below.
The Sahitya Akademi has been
appointed as nodal agency for the LEC.
The inclusion of languages as Classical Language will
create significant employment opportunities, particularly
in academic and research fields, the Government statement said. Additionally, it said the preservation, documentation and digitisation of ancient texts of these languages will generate jobs in archiving, translation, publishing and digital media. The primary States involved are
Maharashtra (Marathi), Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh (Pali and Prakrit),West Bengal (Bengali) and Assam
(Assamese), while the broader cultural and academic impact
will extend nationally and internationally.
GRATEFULTO PM,SAYS FADNAVIS: Maharashtra Deputy
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday thanked
Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Central Government’s
decision to accord the“classical language” status to Marathi.
“This is a golden letter day. On behalf of the 12 crore people of Maharashtra, I thank PM Modi for this decision,”
Fadnavis said. Fadnavis said that when he was Maharashtra
CM, State Government led by him had taken up the issue
of according the classical language status to Marathi with
the Centre. The present Government, led by Eknath Shinde,
also continued efforts in the direction, Fadnavis said.