The Narendra Modi government on Thursday granted ‘classical language’ status to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali. Addressing a press conference, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said, “This is a historic decision. PM Modi has always focused on Indian languages. Today, 5 languages like Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali have been recognized as classical languages. has been approved.” In 2013, the Maharashtra government had sent a proposal to the Center to give the status of classical language to Marathi language. This is being considered a big bet of the government just before the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
After the announcement of Modi government on Thursday, there will now be a total of 11 classical languages. Before this, Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Oriya had the status of classical languages. Taking an important decision on Thursday, Modi government announced that Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali languages will also be included in the classical language. These belong to Maharashtra (Marathi), Bihar (Pali and Prakrit), West Bengal (Bengali) and Assam (Assamese).
Giving information about the Cabinet decisions, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said, “This is a historic decision and this decision is taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the NDA government to take forward our culture, be proud of our heritage and promote all Indian languages and our This is in line with the philosophy of taking pride in the rich heritage.” The government said that classical languages serve as custodians of India’s ancient cultural heritage, and represent the historical and cultural essence of each community.
In 2004, the central government decided to create a new category of languages as “classical languages”. In which Tamil was first declared a classical language. After this, Sanskrit was given the status of classical language on 25 November 2005, Telugu on 11 October 2008, Kannada on 31 October 2008, Malayalam on 8 August 2013 and Oriya on 1 March 2014.
Maharashtra government had brought the proposal in 2013
A government statement said that in 2013, a proposal was received from the Maharashtra government requesting to give classical language status to Marathi. This proposal was sent to the Linguistics Expert Committee (LEC). LEC recommended Marathi for the classical language.
Assembly elections are due in Maharashtra later this year and this was a major election issue in the state. On July 25, Shiv Sena (UBT) had also requested the Central Government to give the status of classical language to Marathi. Party MP Arvind Sawant raised this demand during the discussion on the Union Budget. He alleged that companies from Maharashtra were being taken to Gujarat. While participating in the discussion on the budget in the Lok Sabha, Sawant had asked that if this happens then how will the youth of Maharashtra get jobs?
