Reading the Eighth Schedule – As a Text on Multilingualism Shakira Jabeen .B Abstract This Paper Attempts to Read the VIII Schedule (ES) of the Constitution of India
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Reading the Eighth Schedule – As a Text on Multilingualism Shakira Jabeen .B Abstract This paper attempts to read the VIII Schedule (ES) of the Constitution of India. This is an attempt to find out the criterion for entry into the VIII Schedule and the incentives offered to the languages that are listed. The paper attempts to capture the implications of this Schedule on the multiple languages of India. The paper endeavors to find the underlying vision behind enlisting languages under this Schedule. This hermeneutic study of an appendage of our Constitution begins with the hypothesis that the VIII Schedule reflects the multilingual mind set of the people of India in general and the framers of the Constitution in particular. The text is the VIII Schedule. Primary and secondary sources are referred to read the text. The method is based on both inductive and deductive logic. The key words are ‘ Eighth schedule’ and ‘language/s’. Introduction There are Twelve Schedules of the Constitution of India. Of them, the Eighth Schedule (hereafter ES) goes under the heading ‘Languages’. Articles 344 (1) and Art. 351 are mentioned in parenthesis. Under this heading there is a list of languages. The foot notes are the Amendments that added languages to the ES. There is nothing else. The Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary gives the meaning for the word ‘schedule’ as ‘written list of things’. The Oxford Thesaurus lists the synonyms of the word- calendar, list, programme, register…’ Hindi and Kannada use the word ‘Pariched/a’, a Sanskrit word for Schedule and the Subhash Kannada Translation Today 93 Reading the Eighth Schedule – As a Text on Multilingualism x English Dictionary gives the words- ‘chapter’ and ‘section’ as the English equivalents of the word. “Schedules appended to statutes form part of the statutes. They are added towards the end as their use is made to avoid encumbering the sections in the matters of excessive details”1. So, the ES is an elaboration of the Articles mentioned above. Of the two Articles that the Schedule refers to, Art. 344 (1) is about ‘Commission and Committee of Parliament on official language’ andArt. 351 deals with the ‘Directive for development of Hindi language’. It is Art. 343 (1) that states the Official Language of the Union- ‘shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.’2 Art. 343 (2) provided for the continuation of English for official purposes of the Union. The two articles mentioned in the ES have a direct reference to all the clauses of Art. 343. In legal parlance ‘schedule’ is defined to “mean a schedule to the Act or Regulation in which the word occurs”. There by, the ES is connected with every Act where the word ‘language’ occurs.3 But, “In case of a conflict between the body of the Act and the Schedule the former prevails.4 The caption of the ES - ‘Languages’ refers to the languages chosen to be included in the ES of the Constitution of India. In its singular form, the term ‘language’ encompasses the structure, pragmatics, semantics and the resultant Discourse. “Discourses in this sense, are more than just language, they are ways of being in the world, or forms of life that integrate words, acts, values, believes, attitudes, and social identities.”5 If each of these forms of life is explained in multiple volumes, it would still be inadequate to capture the full meaning of language. However, to draw a premise to begin a reading of ES as text, one cannot but agree that language as a shared code is necessary for communication between individuals, groups, communities and nations. The human speech organs, ears, the brain, together with language processing capacity, capacity to produce infinite sentences with finite grammatical structures, memory, collective consciousness coupled with emotions have made language the most potent form of human expression. Language “is perhaps the most important 94 Translation Today Shakira Jabeen .B thing which society has evolved, out of which other things have taken growth”.6 Language is inseparably connected with thought and meaning. The modern education has connected language with employment opportunities. The modern nation states, at least some of them have assimilated the antiquity of languages to claim a historical sense of continuity for the idea of nation state. The ES is a list of ‘Languages’. The genesis of the ES is traced to the Constituent Assembly Debate7 and the Munshi- Ayyangar formula. This formula was a compromise- “two aspects of the compromise, however, included for the benefit of regional language speakers, deserve special comment. They are: the listing of regional languages in the Constitution and the reference to the interest of non- Hindi speakers in regard to the public services.”8 The Purpose of ES: The functional purpose of ES was twofold. It was recognition granted to 14 languages for being developed enough to be used in multiple domains. Jawaharlal Nehru explained the purpose of the ES- “Our country has a number of highly developed languages and several scripts. We have decided to encourage these great provincial languages”.9 By its reference to the Articles 344 (1) and 351, the ES was a source to draw members to the Official Language Commission and a source of assimilation for the enrichment of Hindi. “It is important to note that no language has sought its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule to enrich Hindi by lending its linguistic resources, but intends its own development through inclusion because of direct accessibility of resources due to enhanced status.”10 Such being the reality, it is necessary to ponder as to what the framers of the Constitution meant by ‘enrichment’. ‘Enrichment’ as used in the article 351 refers to the unique vocabulary resource that a people develop to express their lived experience through language – ‘…the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and the other languages specified in the Eighth Schedule…”.11 It would be naïve to conclude that vocabulary is the be all and end all of language enrichment. Vocabulary reflects a people’s ideas, beliefs Translation Today 95 Reading the Eighth Schedule – As a Text on Multilingualism and worldview. It is this worldview that represents methods of resolving conflict, concern for environment, means of preserving natural resources, the myths and stories that should move from generation to generation and people to people through language/s. The Profile of ES: The languages in the ES are referred to as Provincial languages, Modern Indian languages, National languages and Recognized languages- nomenclatures that do not have constitutional validity. Chapter II of Part XVII of the Constitution of India uses the term- ‘Regional Languages.’ The Kothari Commission Report of 1964 referred to the languages of ES as ‘ Modern Indian Languages’ which was repeated in the Three Language Formula of National Education Policy of 1968. The ES has grown to a list of 22 Languages. The number has almost doubled since the Constitution came into being. The 22 languages in the VIII Schedule are- 1. Assamese 2. Bengali 3. Gujarati 4. Hindi 5. Kannada 6. Kashmiri 7. Konkani. 8. Malayalam 9. Manipuri 10. Marathi 11. Nepali 12. Oriya 13. Punjabi 14. Sanskrit 15. Sindhi 16. Tamil 17. Telugu 18. Urdu 19. Bodo 20. Santali 21. Maithili 22. Dogri.12 These 22 languages can be grouped under the language families they belong to, which goes to prove the uneven representation of languages belonging to various families. Belonging to any one of the language families seems to be one of the criteria for languages to be included into the ES. Language Family No of Languages 1 Indo Aryan 15 2 Dravidian 4 3 Tibeto-Burman 2 4 Munda 1 This categorization reflects only the tip of the linguistic diversity of India. “The 1961 Census reported as many as 1652 96 Translation Today Shakira Jabeen .B Mother tongues classified into two hundred and odd languages belonging to four distinct families”. This linguistic diversity is unique to India. These languages in turn have their dialects. There are language isolates- languages that stand alone without belonging to any of the families.13 There are ‘ten major writing systems and a host of minor ones.’14 Among the 22 languages listed in ES, three languages- Nepali, Bengali and Urdu also happen to be the national languages of our neighboring countries- Nepal, Bangla Desh and Pakistan. Sanskrit, Sindhi and Urdu are not region specific languages of the Union. Kashmiri is not the official language of Kashmir. English is not listed but is the Associate Official Language of the Union as well the official language of States of Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. English is also the official language of the Union territories. Hindi finds a place in the Constitution as well as in the ES! Konkani that was added to the ES with the Seventy- first Amendment of the Constitutional Act and Santali with the Ninety-second Amendment are written in multiple scripts. The representation of States in the ES is uneven – some states have two or more of their major languages in the Schedule. In terms of collective demography, majority of Indians speak the languages listed in the ES. “In 1981, the percentage of the speakers of the 15 Scheduled languages had risen to 95.58% of the total household population”.15 What is left out of the Schedule is 1300 Mother tongues. The 22 languages listed under the ES + English that finds a mention in the Constitution are a minuscule minority. However, the list is a move towards acknowledging the linguistic diversity of India. The ES by listing 22 languages out of this linguistic diversity shifts the focus on two issues- the unscheduled languages are given a benchmark and a direction for growth.