SHILLONG: A day after the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly passed a resolution to include Khasi and Garo language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, the Khasi Authors’ Society (KAS) has asked the Chief Minister to pursue the matter with the Central Government at the earliest.
The KAS president, Dr L Nonglait on Friday said, “We hope the Chief Minister will take steps as he has assured us take up the matter with the Union Home Minister and the Prime Minister.”
Stating that the resolution passed by the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly was a positive move, he said that if the Government was serious, something would happen within this year in New Delhi.
Making it clear that the Society would have to aggressively pursue the issue, he urged the State Government to make a strong case for including Khasi language and the Society will cooperate with the Government.
When asked what will be the benefits of including Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule, he said that following the inclusion, all the ministries will have to keep translators for the language and it will open up avenues
He also said that once the language got its recognition, the Union Grants Commission (UGC) would have to conduct examinations for MA Khasi which is not the case now.
According to the 2011 census, the Khasi and Garo languages are spoken by 13.8 lakh and 9.36 lakh people respectively.
The language has also been a medium for broadcasting in AIR (Prasar Bharati) since 1953 and for telecasting in Doordarshan since its inception in Tura on March 31, 1993, the resolution stated.
Another important criterion the MHA had set is that the language should be a medium of instruction in schools and colleges