Thomas Benedikter Minority Languages in India An appraisal of the linguistic rights of minorities in India ---------------------------- EURASIA-Net Europe-South Asia Exchange on Supranational (Regional) Policies and Instruments for the Promotion of Human Rights and the Management of Minority Issues 2 Linguistic minorities in India An appraisal of the linguistic rights of minorities in India Bozen/Bolzano, March 2013 This study was originally written for the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (EURAC), Institute for Minority Rights, in the frame of the project Europe-South Asia Exchange on Supranational (Regional) Policies and Instruments for the Promotion of Human Rights and the Management of Minority Issues (EURASIA-Net). The publication is based on extensive research in eight Indian States, with the support of the European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano and the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata. EURASIA-Net Partners Accademia Europea Bolzano/Europäische Akademie Bozen (EURAC) – Bolzano/Bozen (Italy) Brunel University – West London (UK) Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität – Frankfurt am Main (Germany) Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (India) South Asian Forum for Human Rights (Nepal) Democratic Commission of Human Development (Pakistan), and University of Dhaka (Bangladesh) Edited by © Thomas Benedikter 2013 Rights and permissions Copying and/or transmitting parts of this work without prior permission, may be a violation of applicable law. The publishers encourage dissemination of this publication and would be happy to grant permission. Requests have to be sent to: [email protected] Author: Thomas Benedikter (EURAC) Proofreading: Catherine Gordley Lay-out: Hanna Battisti All photographs: Thomas Benedikter Cover photo: a girl of the Bhotia minority in Dankhar, Spiti Valley (Himachal Pradesh), photo by Thomas Benedikter 3 Content Page Introduction: linguistic human rights in the Indian context 6 1 A general overview on India’s linguistic landscape 9 1.1 India’s languages in history 9 1.2 India’s languages in figures 11 1.3 Scheduled and non-scheduled languages 15 1.4 The quest of choosing a “national language” 18 2 The linguistic re-organisation of the Indian Union 21 2.1 Redrawing the States’ boundaries 21 2.2 India’s linguistic federalism 25 3 A typology of linguistic minorities in India 28 3.1 Definition of minority languages 28 3.2 The importance of scripts 30 3.3 Tribal peoples: a group of its own? 32 3.4 A typology of minority languages 34 3.5 New minorities? Language rights and internal migration 36 4 India’s constitutional safeguards for linguistic minorities 38 4.1 The provisions of India’s Constitution in linguistic matters 38 4.2 The implementation of the constitutional safeguards and the 8th Schedule 41 4.3 Are the constitutional safeguards sufficient? 43 5 The States’ language policy and protection of linguistic minorities 46 5.1 A brief genesis of the States’ language policy 46 5.2 The Union’s and States’ Official Language Acts 49 5.3 What impact on minority languages? 54 6 The languages of India’s tribal peoples 55 6.1 India’s indigenous peoples: an overview 55 6.2 Tribal languages 58 6.3 Tribal literacy 60 6.4 Language attitudes and functional load of tribal languages 62 6.5 Tribal peoples and education 63 7 Education and minority languages 67 7.1 General features of the Indian educational system 67 7.2 Basic facts regarding language and education 69 7.3 A current dilemma of India’s education policy 72 7.4 Which medium of instruction? 73 7.5 Can the three-language-formula cope with multilingualism? 75 7.6 The educational rights of linguistic minorities 79 8 Public administration, media and minority languages 85 8.1 Minority languages in administration 8 8.2 Minority languages in the media 89 8.3 Minority languages and the digital sector 91 9 India’s multilingualism and language shift among minorities 92 9.1 Multilingualism on the advance 92 9.2 What is multilingualism in the Indian context? 93 9.3 Multilingualism: a resource or a problem? 97 9.4 Language shift and language attrition among tribal peoples 98 10 India’s protection of linguistic minorities as compared with European standards 102 10.1 The importance of language in identity building 103 10.2 Minority protection in a multilingual and federal political context 103 10.3 The economic dimension of the protection of linguistic rights 104 4 10.4 Language and territory 105 10.5 Differences in perceiving multilingualism: the hierarchy of linguistic domains 106 10.6 What is an official language? About the politics of recognition 107 10.7 Minority languages in education 108 10.8 Minority languages in the public sphere 109 10.9 Minority protection as a constitutional issue 109 10.10 Tribal peoples and modern society 110 10.11 Summary 111 11. Conclusion: open issues of the protection of linguistic human rights in India 113 Annex 116 1. Indian language policy institutions 116 2. Legal provisions on language in the Indian Constitution 118 3. Bibliography 121 Maps Map 1: Language families in South Asia 9 Map 2: Hindi v/s other scheduled languages 33 Map 3: Tribal peoples in India's Northeast 57 Tables Table 1 - The Indian language families Table 2 - India’s 22 major (1991) and the 22 scheduled languages (in 2001) Table 3 - India’s non-scheduled languages (according to the census of 1991) Table 4 - The numerically most important linguistic minorities in each State/UT (2001) Table 5 - Majority languages and speakers of minority languages (2001) Table 6 - Official status of languages at State and district level (in 2001) Table 7 - The hierarchy of functional load Table 8 - Scripts of India’s minority languages Table 9 - Scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) on India’s total population Table 10 - The numerically most important linguistic minorities in each State or UT (2001) Table 11 - Numerically significant minority languages in each State (in 1991) Table 12 – Official and officially recognized languages of the States (2001) Table 13 - Language retention among tribal peoples (1971 and 1981) Table 14 - Literacy rates among tribal peoples (in 1991) Table 15 - Number of languages taught in schools (2004) Table 16 - The TLF (as implemented or approved by States and Union Territories) Table 17 - The 41 languages taught in schools as medium languages or subject (in 2004) Table 18 - Ratio of bilingual people among major speech groups (1971, 1981 and 2001) Table 19 - Number of multilingual people in India among speakers of scheduled languages (2001) Table 20 - Bilingualism and trilingualism of speakers of minority languages (in 1991) Table 21 - Language shift among India’s tribal peoples in various States Abbreviations SRC – State Reorganization Commission TLF – Three Languages Formula NCLM – National Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities CIIL - Central Institute of Indian Languages ST – Scheduled Tribes SC – Scheduled Castes UT – Union Territory 5 Acknowledgments My heartfelt thanks for support, suggestions, comments and assistance of any kind go to: Dr. Günther Rautz, co-ordinating director of the Institute of Minority Rights, EURAC Bozen Prof. Ranabir Samaddar, director of the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata Ms Chatterji, secretary general, MCRG, Kolkata Dr. Jennifer Bayer, Central Institute of Indian Languages CIIL, Mysore Prof. Shailendra Kumar Singh, head of the Department of Linguistics, NEHU Shillong Dr. Curiously Bareh, Researcher of the Department of Linguistics, NEHU Shillong Dr. Sylvanus Lamaré, St. Edmund's College, Shillong S. K. Upadhyaya, National Commission for Linguistic Minorities, Kolkata Prof. Dyutish Chakraborty, Department of Political Science, University of Northern Bengal, Siliguri Prof. Omkar N. Koul, chairman of the Indian Institute of Language Study, New Delhi M.K. Khanna, National Commission for Minorities, New Delhi Ms Kamala Devi Tokchom, Imphal (Manipur) Subodh Hansda, ASECA (All Santal Educational Conference), Kolkata Dr. Klaus Voll, New Delhi Prof. Dipankar Basu, Darjeeling Dr. T. Kumzang, Secretary General of the Ladakh Buddhist Association, Leh (Ladakh) Prof. Anjani Kumar Sinha, University of Delhi, New Delhi Südasien-Institut (SAI) of the University of Heidelberg (Germany) Ms Catherine Gordley, Bolzano/Bozen Dr. Hanna Battisti, Kaltern 6 Introduction Linguistic human rights in the Indian context The present analysis deals with language rights as a subset of human rights in an area of the world exhibiting particular linguistic diversity. It is an effort to map India’s linguistic minorities and to assess their major grievances and the provisions for their protection. Linguistic human rights have been coherently defined on a theoretical level1 and through some early legal approaches.2 The right to speak, to learn, to educate and unfold all cultural activities in one’s own mother tongue, in addition to other official languages, is also enshrined in many Constitutions of the world. “Linguistic rights should be considered basic human rights. Linguistic majorities, speakers of a dominant language, usually enjoy all those linguistic human rights which can be seen as fundamental, regardless how they are defined. Most linguistic minorities in the world do not enjoy these rights. It is only a few hundreds of the world’s 6.000 odd languages that have any kind of official status, and it is only speakers of official languages who enjoy all linguistic human rights.”3 Thus, in a world organised in states with one single, or some few official majority languages, linguistic minorities are compelled to defend their linguistic rights. The latest edition of UNESCO's Atlas of World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing4 classifies around 2,500 of the 6,000 languages of the world as to some extent endangered: 538 critically endangered, 502 severely endangered, 632 definitely endangered and 607 unsafe. Within India's linguistic landscape on a total of 196 languages included in the UNESCO-Atlas 84 are considered unsafe, 62 definitely endangered, 6 severely endangered, 35 critically endangered and 9 extinct (since the 1950s).