In his inaugural address at a conclave on “Transformational Reforms in Higher Education under National Education Policy”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognized the importance of mother tongue. He stated that, “There is no dispute that children learn faster in the dialect they speak at home. This is a major reason for the National Education Policy, 2020 to include imparting of education in children’s mother tongue, at least till class 5.” If implemented as envisioned, the teaching in mother tongue till class 5 under the new National Education Policy would be beneficial not only from a learning point of view but would also safeguard hundreds of endangered languages across India.
This emphasis on mother tongue points towards a crisis which needs to be addressed – endangered languages. Worldwide, every two weeks a language dies. The situation is not very different in India either. The 1961 census in India recognized 1,652 mother tongues. But the next census in 1971 counted only 808. The People’s Linguistic Survey of India which began in 2010, recorded 780 languages in the country. The survey claims that 220 languages were lost in India in the previous five decades while 197 were endangered. The Government of India, on the other hand, at present recognizes only 122 languages in the country. The gap in recognition exists because the Government of India does not recognize any language with less than 10,000 speakers. This has endangered many small languages in the country, many of which are already extinct and others are on the verge of it.
This apathy towards certain languages is not a new one. The British administration in India had far more adverse and dreadful laws against some communities which affected the growth of their languages. One such law was the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 (which was first applied in North India and thereafter applied to other parts of the country subsequently). At the time of independence, some 127 communities (numbering 13 million people) were on the list. Many members of these communities tried to hide their identity, language, and culture to avoid persecution. In due course, this led to many of them losing their mother tongue.
Being outside the ambit of such harsh laws and instead, having special protective laws, many smaller languages in Northeast India survived and flourished until now. The geography and topography of the region with high hills and remote valleys further helped in protecting the languages from outside influence. This has also added to the diversity of languages and nearly 250 languages (major and minor) are spoken in this unique part of the country. In many parts of Northeast, even villages situated close to one another find each other’s language unintelligible due to the various dialects developing over time. This diversity has turned the region into a treasure trove for linguists.
However, at present, there are several threats which loom over these languages. Several languages are already extinct and many more are endangered. Assam, for example, has a unique family of six Tai-Kadai languages (a language group primarily spoken in South East Asia and China like Thai, Lao, and Shan). Of the Tai languages, Tai Ahom and Tai Turung are already extinct. Tai Khamyang with less than 50 speakers is a critically endangered language. The three other Tai languages – Aiton, Khamti, and Phake have less than 3,000 speakers in total. The primary threat to these languages is that most young generation speakers are switching to more dominant or official languages of the region, which in this case is Assamese. Many people who previously spoke these Tai languages today speak Assamese and those from newer generations do not know any Tai words. Also, the medium of instruction being Assamese or English in the majority of the schools, children often tend to learn those languages and give up their mother tongue. The limited number of speakers often makes it difficult for the Government to establish schools teaching these languages. Further, being proficient in the official languages makes it easier to get employment. All these factors together have pushed these languages on the verge of extinction.
At an international level, several instruments have tried to address this issue, the most important of them being UNESCO’s conventions and declarations, like the 2001 UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The common point of all three instruments is that they acknowledge that language as a vital and fundamental element in cultural diversity and emphasize on the need to safeguard linguistic heritage, encourage linguistic diversity at all levels of education and society, and also promote linguistic diversity in public. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1976) recognizing the importance of language, particularly of ethnic minorities, clearly states that:
In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.
The pro-active approach by the international community is also reflected in some of our Indian laws, but the implementation and policy decisions prove otherwise. Our Constitution, by way of Article 29(1), confers rights to protect one’s own language, script, and culture, and Article 30 confers rights to minorities to establish and administer educational institutions. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of DAV College, Jullundur v. State of Punjab, has also defined the concept of linguistic minorities as well. Yet, the lack of strong policies and implementation of laws have always concerned vulnerable languages in the country. For example, the non-recognition of languages with less than 10,000 speakers by the Government has made it difficult for many languages to come under the ambit of many of the country’s linguistic laws and policies.
The National Education Policy, 2020 does bring in some ray of hope with emphasis on education in mother tongue till Class 5. This, however, needs to be backed by other policy changes including strengthening the Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India Scheme which was launched by the then Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2013. Further, assistance must be provided for research on these languages under the National Research Foundation as envisioned in the National Education Policy, 2020. Many of the endangered languages as a subject can be introduced in schools, especially in areas where members of the community speaking such languages reside. In the case of lack of teachers in those languages, special recruitments from among the members of those communities can be initiated. Most importantly, community members need to play a crucial role in passing on the linguistic heritage to future generations. Pro-active steps like these from both the Government and the people will save much of our linguistic heritage from extinction.
Abhishek Chakravarty is an Assistant Professor of Law at Sai University and Faculty at Daksha Fellowship in Chennai, India. His research interests lie in Environmental Law and Rights of Indigenous people.
Suggested citation: Abhishek Chakravarty, Saving India’s Endangered Languages in light of National Education Policy 2020, JURIST – Academic Commentary, August 21, 2020, https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/08/abhishek-chakravarty-saving-endangered-languages-in-india/.
This article was prepared for publication by Akshita Tiwary, JURIST’s Staff Editor. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org
