Campaign for Language Equality and Rights (CLEAR) greets all citizens of India on this great International Mother Language Day, celebrated across the world.
On this day, we would like to urgent both the Union and State governments in India to uphold the flags of our mother languages and guarantee the language rights to all of us without any discrimination whatsoever.
In every state in India, in the name of education, the mother language medium education is attacked by market forces and clueless governments. Millions of students, particularly in rural India, won’t be educated in English alone. Though we don’t reduce the importance of English or any other language considered useful, it is very clear that mother tongue-based education is the foundation to set the stage of our children for further learning of any language or subjects.
Every country that achieved great advancements in becoming a knowledge economy, did so with the help of widespread and modern education to the people in their languages. By making languages as the carriers of knowledge, societies achieve a strong foundation in creating millions of youths as knowledge workers. Having a few elite schools here and there, forcing English, or renouncing mother tongues won’t help.
On the Union government level, the discrimination of languages prevail despite the strong protests across India by various language people. For example, every union government program’s name is either in Sanskrit or Hindi. The names aren’t got translated for different states. Many union ministers still send their letters to the non-Hindi states in Hindi alone, despite the protests by the members of parliament and ruling by courts. The official language rules have clearly told us that non-Hindi states to be communicated not in Hindi.
In every state, the discriminatory language politics of India has played havoc with the lives of the native people.
This year, in Kerala, the language rights activists fought for proper implementation of Malayalam education in CBSE schools and engineering colleges In West Bengal, language activists went to the court to direct banks to support Bengali in the banks in Bangladesh. In Tamil Nadu, and even ask the state government to protect the world famous Bengali film industry. In Tamil Nadu, the finance minister Mr Palanivel Thiyagarajan asked the banks to implement native language support in all of its public services. In Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Odisha and many other states, language activists continue to protest for language rights.and mother tongue education.
CLEAR urges both the union and state governments to upload the rights of all languages in India and understand no imperial language policy would help the country to become a knowledge economy. The only route to become a global knowledge powerhouse goes through the mother tongue education and the only way to guarantee the unity and integrity of the great country is through treating all languages equal.
Thanks and regards
Dr Joga Singh Virk, President
Mr Aazhi Senthilnathan, Federal Secretary