Watch your language

In recent months the campaign to get official language status for Tulu has gained momentum on social media One of the five prominent Dravidian languagesmdashTamil Kannada Malayalam and Telugu being the other fourmdashit is spoken in the Kasaragod district of Kerala Dakshina Kannada Udupi a portion of Shimoga and parts of Chikmagalur and Kadagu Coorg the Tuluspeaking population estimated at 6070 lakh And yet it hasnrsquot been admitted in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution as an official languageThis 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 220page proposal for the same to the government of India through the Karnataka government without any resultsPicGetty ImagesThis 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 ldquoOur contention was that these four languages were added not because of their quality but because of the political agenda behind their inclusionrdquo 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 noninclusion was also the poor political representation at Delhi with only one Tuluspeaking MP Dhananjay Kumar voicing concerns at that time most MPs in Karnataka neither speaking Tulu nor supporting its inclusionIn 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 inclusionDr Purushothama Bilimale Dr Sayeegeetha Kshema and Mithun RaildquoIf a language becomes the official language of a state it is added to the 8th Schedulerdquo Dr Bilimale explains ldquoFor 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 governmentsrdquo He says that while the present governmentrsquos emphasis has been towards Hindi and Sanskrit minor languages havenrsquot been protected citing the example of the loss of the Sare language with its last speaker in Andaman dying in April last yearAccording 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 ldquoDo you think the national broadcasting channel can accommodate them The Union Public Service Commission canrsquot conduct examinations in so many languages eitherrdquo The current need instead he suggests is to evolve a national language policy to take care of our diverse languagesFor Mithun M Rai Lok Sabha 2019 Indian National Congress candidate from Dakshina Kannada official status is about ldquoretaining our legacy and making our roots strongerrdquo 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 generationsDr Sayeegeetha Kshema HOD Department of Humanities at NITTE University Mangaluru on the other hand says that it is the languagersquos rich oral literature along with the vibrant scholarly and creative works that have come out in recent years that warrant its inclusion ldquoAcademically Tulu has come to schools only recentlyrdquo she points out ldquoChildren used to be punished if they were caught speaking itrdquoDarmadarshi 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 ldquoThere are numerous inscriptions in Tulu in many places in the state It has its own authentic script and lots of literaryworks It is our duty to preserve our mother tonguerdquoMoreover 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 ldquoI donrsquot think as a state Tulu Nadu will survive as there are no resources other than fishing It doesnrsquot have the selfsustaining power to form a staterdquoIn 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 ldquoIf they had argued for a Tulu state at that time Kasaragod would have remained with Tulu Nadurdquo he laments ldquoWe lost a part of Tulu Nadu then it was the cregraveme of Tulu culturemdashYakshagana theatre style was born there and the Koraga tribal community also belongs to itrdquoPunaroor 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 ldquoI 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 usrdquo18Number of North Indian languages recognised in the 8th Schedule of the total 22