Dimapur, September 18 (MExN): A linguistic rights trust has stated that democracy will succeed only when the distance between the people and the administration is reduced as much as possible. In that, it reiterated its demand to declare all the languages in the 8th schedule as official languages of the Union of India.
“If the language of administration is different than the language of the people, it increases the distance between the two,” Garga Chatterje, Convener, Campaign for Language Equality and Rights (CLEAR), West Bengal section said in a press note received here.
CLEAR is a trust with members from different linguistic communities of India.
Arguing that while the current political setup of India, though often called as federal in nature, majority of services are all provided by the institutions affiliated to the Union Government of India, CLEAR said it is only natural for the native language of the respective states to be used primarily in all such services.
Services like Postal Department, PSU Banks, Insurance Companies, Railways, Air Services, Taxes and many such services touch the life of the common man every single day in one way or another, however, the Union Government has declared only Hindi and English as the official languages, it said.
All the administration of Union Government and its affiliate institutions are carried out in Hindi and English only even even if the offices are located in non-Hindi states, the respective language of the states is not made use of, CLEAR further maintained. In this regard, it asserted that the only remedy for this “undemocratic practice” is to declare all the 22 languages in the 8th schedule as the official languages of the Union Government.
“22 official languages would render redundant the articles 343-351 of the constitution of India that mandates preferential treatment to only Hindi among several languages of India,” it said.
“It is our firm belief that linguistic equality is the bedrock upon which a thriving union can be built.” “We want to reiterate our demand to declare all the languages in the 8th schedule as official languages of the Union of India,” CLEAR stated.
