Maharashtra scraps new three language policy

Context

• Maharashtra scrapped the introduction of the three-language policy for Classes 1 to 5 in State government schools on Sunday, after two months of sustained opposition by academics, activists, and political parties, including the Nationalist Congress Party, which is part of the ruling coalition in the State.

• To decide the future of the policy, the government set up an expert committee to be headed by economist, educationist, and former Rajya Sabha member Narendra Jadhav.

• “The government has put the three-language formula on hold at present. The committee has sought three months,” a senior government official told The Hindu.

National Education Policy 2020

• The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandates that all students across the country must learn three languages in school.

• Theoretically, NEP 2020 is more flexible than the previous versions of the three-language policy in India, which have always faced resistance not just in south India but also different States.

• Hindi is only one of the many Indian languages, and States are free to choose any two Indian languages and one foreign language in the mix of three, according to NEP 2020.

• However, there is this fear that Hindi will become the default option as the second Indian language apart from the native language

• NEP 1968 made Hindi compulsory across the nation, with specific language requirements for states.

• Hindi-speaking states were to teach Hindi, English, and a modern Indian language (preferably a South Indian language).

• Non-Hindi-speaking states were expected to teach local language, Hindi, and English

• NEP 2020 retains the three-language formula, introduced in the NEP of 1968.

• Sanskrit is given special emphasis as an optional choice in the three-language formula. And this is widely used as a third language in North India

Constitutional Provisions

• Part XVII of the Indian constitution deals with the official languages in Articles 343 to 351.

• Article 351 states that, it is the duty of the Union to encourage the spread of the Hindi language to make it lingua franca (a shared language of communication used by people who are speakers of different languages) in India

• As per Article 343(1) of the Constitution of India, Hindi in Devanagari script shall be the official language of the Union. Apart from Hindi, English was also made official language in India after resistance to Hindi by Southern states

• The Official Language Act, 1963 provides under Section 7 that the use of Hindi or official language of a State in addition to the English language may be authorized, with the consent of the President of India, by the Governor of the State for the purpose of judgments, decrees etc. made by the High Court for that State.

Schedule 8 of the constitution

• Schedule 8 of the Indian Constitution has recognised 22 Scheduled Languages, including Hindi as well.

• It includes Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.

• Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution.

• Sindhi language was added by the 21st Amendment Act of 1967.

• Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali were included by the 71st Amendment Act of 1992.

• Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, and Santhali were added by the 92nd Amendment Act of 2003 which came into force in 2004.