Congress' Adhir Chowdhury appeals to PM for designating Bengali as classical language

Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Adhir Chowdhury on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider including Bengali in the list of classical languages. Writing to the PM on the occasion of the 79th death anniversary of legendary Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, he questioned the Centre on not recognising Bengali as a classical language in the National Education Policy. He opined that Bengali fulfilled all the attributes of a classical language.

To buttress his point, the Leader of Opposition cited that Bengali is the fifth-most spoken language in the world. Moreover, he cited the original literary tradition of this language. According to him, anthropological and archaeological evidence showcased that Bengali-speaking people are a conglomerate of several racial elements wielded together by the Bengali language.  

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Classical language status

There has been a consistent demand from many states for the promotion of their respective official languages for many years. In 2004, Tamil was the first language to be granted classical language status. This was followed by Sanskrit in 2005, Telugu in 2008, Kannada in 2008, Malayalam in 2013, and Odia in 2014. The criteria adopted by the Centre to determine the eligibility of a language for classical language status includes its recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years, a body of ancient literature, whether its literary tradition is original and not borrowed from another speech community and other yardsticks.  

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Focus in NEP 2020

In the National Education Policy 2020, there is a special focus on the significance of classical languages. Maintaining that a classical language and its works of literature must be preserved for its richness and the pleasure of posterity, it added that the young generation will find it enriching. The policy envisages that the classical languages of India including Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Persian, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia would be widely available in schools as options for students, possibly as online modules. Furthermore, it mentions that students in all public and private schools shall have the option of learning at least two years of a classical language and its associated literature from grades 6 to 12. 

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