SHILLONG/NEW DELHI, Aug 3: A Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP raised the issue of the inclusion of Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution during a session of Parliament, but the take of the National People’s Party’s youth wing on this comes in a novel way with it casting aspersions on the TMC for trying to gain political mileage.
National People’s Youth Front (NPYF) spokesperson Bajop Pyngrope said that one of the TMC legislators had even claimed that the party has created history after raising the issue in Parliament.
Contradicting such claims, Pyngrope said, “But I would like to remind the TMC that the MPs of the party (NPP) had already spoken on this matter in Parliament.”
The KHADC MDC from NPP recalled that party’s Lok Sabha member from Tura, Agatha Sangma, had spoken about the inclusion of the Khasi and Garo languages in the lower house, as well as Rajya Sabha member from NPP Dr WR Kharlukhi had pressed for the need to include the two main languages of the state in the Eighth Schedule.
“I understand that everyone would take advantage to popularise their own party with election around the corner. The TMC which is making an entry into the state is doing the same,” Pyngrope said.
Reminding that the demand for inclusion of the Khasi language had started since 1992 after the recognition for the Manipuri language, he said that the movement was spearheaded by the Khasi Authors Society.
He further recalled that the NPP-led MDA Government had even passed a resolution in the Assembly to push the Centre to include the two languages in the Eighth Schedule.
“We hope that this will become a reality since the state government is continuously pursuing this matter with the Centre,” Pyngrope added.
Earlier, the demand for recognition of the languages was raised in Parliament by TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhyay.
“It is the inclusion of the Garo and Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule that I would like to talk about. Article 29 of the Constitution states that a section of citizens having a distinct language, script, or culture has the right to conserve the same. Under the Meghalaya State Legislature Act 2005, Garo and Khasi have been declared associate official languages”, Bandopadhyay had said in Lok Sabha on Monday.
Khasi is an Astro-Asiatic language spoken primarily among the tribe in Meghalaya and hilly areas of Assam, he said, adding, “Garo is a Tibeto-Burmese language of the Boro-Jingpko group, spoken in Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, Nagaland.”
According to the 2011 Census, there are over 13 lakh (46.5%) Khasi speakers and 9 lakh (31.5%) Garo speakers. The issue in inclusion of the two languages has been the lack of their own original scripts,” the TMC MP had said. “We urge the union government to take cognisance of the state’s demand to include Garo and Khasi in the Eighth Schedule,” the TMC MP had said.
Moreover, TMC MLA George B Lyngdoh had said that never before one has seen a national party taking the voices of the MLAs and MPs, who represent the people of the state and the union, to a protest outside Parliament on the subject of inclusion of Garo and Khasi languages in the Eighth schedule.
Lyngdoh said that this kind of an effort would continue beyond the inclusion of languages.
On July 26, a delegation of TMC leaders from Meghalaya including Mukul Sangma and party MLAs along with MPs had held a protest outside Parliament demanding recognition for Garo and Khasi languages.
