Indian Polity & Constitution
Context: The world celebrates International Mother Language Day on February 21, 2023.
About International Mother Language Day:
- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)celebrates 21st February as International Mother Language Day.
- It is celebrated to promote mother tongue-based multilingual education.
- The theme of the 2023 International Mother Language Day, is “Multilingual education – a necessity to transform education”.
- It was Bangladesh’s initiative to introduce the idea of International Mother Language Day to UNESCO.
- The United Nations agency initiated the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) .
About Languages in India:
- Indian Languages are classified into several groups, including the Indo-Aryan group, the Dravidian group, the Sino-Tibetan group, Austric, and others.
- Article 343 (1)of the Indian Constitution mentions that “the official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.”
- Part XVIIof the Indian constitution deals with the official languages of India from Article 342 to 351.
- There are 22 languageslisted under the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution namely Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Santhali, and Maithili.
- Recent studies show that tribal languages are moving towards extinction in India.
- Linguist experts say that the most threatened language is Majhi in Sikkim.
- Similarly, the Mahali language in eastern India, Koro in Arunachal Pradesh, Sidi in Gujarat, and Dimasa in Assam are facing extinction.
- There are 62 tribal groups in the state of Odisha, including 13 particularly vulnerable ones, literature but the education material is available only in Santali and Ho
- Only six tribal languages — Santali, Ho, Soura, Munda and Kui — have a written script in Odisha.
SOURCE: DOWN TO EARTH
Previous Year Questions
Q.1) If a particular area is brought under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which one of the following statements best reflects the consequence of it? (2022)
- This would prevent the transfer of land from tribal people to non-tribal people.
- This would create a local self-governing body in that area.
- This would convert that area into a Union Territory.
- The State having such areas would be declared a Special Category State.
Q.2) The provisions in the Fifth Schedule and Sixth Schedule in the Constitution of India are made in order to : (2015)
- protect the interests of Scheduled Tribes
- determine the boundaries between states
- determine the powers, authorities, and responsibilities of Panchayats
- protect the interests of all the border States
