Watch your language

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In recent months, the campaign to get official language status for Tulu has gained momentum on social media. One of the five prominent Dravidian languages - Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu being the other four - it is spoken in the Kasaragod district of Kerala, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, a portion of Shimoga and parts of Chikmagalur and Kadagu (Coorg), the Tulu-speaking population estimated at 60-70 lakh. And yet, it hasn't been admitted in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution as an official language.

This, however, has not been for the want of trying. Dr Purushothama Bilimale, former professor at the Centre for Indian Languages at Jawaharlal Nehru University traces the long and fraught history of the effort to gain official status. In 1998, Dr Vivek Rai, chairperson of Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, submitted a 220-page proposal for the same to the government of India through the Karnataka government, without any results.

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This was followed by others in 2003 and 2013 in which Dr Bilimale himself played an active role. In 2004, five languages were presented in the Parliament to be added in the 8th Schedule. These were Tulu, Bodo, Maithili, Santhali and Dogri, and while the latter four were given official status, Tulu was rejected. "Our contention was that these four languages were added not because of their quality but because of the political agenda behind their inclusion," says Dr Bilimale. Moreover, he points out that the sole South Indian language was dropped. The 8th Schedule has recognised 22 languages, out of which 18 are from north India, he says, asserting the obvious regional imbalance. The reason for the non-inclusion was also the poor political representation at Delhi, with only one Tulu-speaking MP, Dhananjay Kumar, voicing concerns at that time, most MPs in Karnataka neither speaking Tulu nor supporting its inclusion.

In 2007, Odia poet and literary critic Dr Sitakant Mahapatra was asked to look into the issues of the inclusion of 39 languages to the 8th Schedule including Tulu, Banjara and Bhojpuri, and suggested the formation of policies for this inclusion.

Dr Purushothama Bilimale, Dr Sayeegeetha Kshema and Mithun Rai

"If a language becomes the official language of a state, it is added to the 8th Schedule," Dr Bilimale explains. "For instance, after Goa recognised Konkani as its official language, it was added in the 8th Schedule in the 1990s. But there has been no support for Tulu from either the central or the state governments." He says that while the present government's emphasis has been towards Hindi and Sanskrit, minor languages haven't been protected, citing the example of the loss of the Sare language with its last speaker in Andaman dying in April last year.

According to the 2011 census, there are 99 languages waiting to be added to the 8th Schedule. But even if all these are included, Dr Bilimale draws attention to the lack of funds and infrastructure for their support. "Do you think the national broadcasting channel can accommodate them? The Union Public Service Commission can't conduct examinations in so many languages either." The current need, instead, he suggests, is to evolve a national language policy to take care of our diverse languages.

For Mithun M Rai, Lok Sabha 2019 Indian National Congress candidate from Dakshina Kannada, official status is about "retaining our legacy and making our roots stronger". Tulu is a point of cultural pride, he says, explaining how along with the language it is important to keep traditions like the Kambala buffalo races and the traditional folk dance Pili Vesha alive for the coming generations.

Dr Sayeegeetha Kshema, HOD, Department of Humanities, at NITTE University, Mangaluru, on the other hand says that it is the language's rich oral literature along with the vibrant scholarly and creative works that have come out in recent years that warrant its inclusion. "Academically Tulu has come to schools only recently," she points out. "Children used to be punished if they were caught speaking it."

Darmadarshi Harikrishna Punaroor, former president of the Kannada Sahitya Parishath says that Tulu was once the official state language and that Vijayanagara emperor Krishnadevaraya was a Tuluva. "There are numerous inscriptions in Tulu in many places in the state. It has its own authentic script and lots of literary
works. It is our duty to preserve our mother tongue."

Moreover, the demand for a separate state of Tulu Nadu, even though its proponents are few, says Dr Bilimale, is an offshoot of the lack of official recognition of the language. "I don't think as a state Tulu Nadu will survive as there are no resources other than fishing. It doesn't have the self-sustaining power to form a state."

In August 1956, Parliament enacted the States Reorganisation Act, which called for states to be redrawn along linguistic lines, and as part of it, Kasaragod, full of Tulu speakers, was added to Kerala. "If they had argued for a Tulu state at that time, Kasaragod would have remained with Tulu Nadu," he laments. "We lost a part of Tulu Nadu then; it was the crème of Tulu culture - Yakshagana [theatre style] was born there, and the Koraga tribal community also belongs to it."

Punaroor has been part of this movement for several years and remembers the time when people had demanded his resignation from his position at the Kannada Sahitya Parishath. "I silenced the critics by saying that like Bhagwan Krishna, we, the coastal people too have two mothers. Tuluvappe is our birth mother and Kannadamma is the one who raised us."

18
Number of North Indian languages recognised in the 8th Schedule of the total 22