Inclusion of Khasi, Garo in 8th Schedule
Staff Correspondent
SHILLONG, March 18: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today stated in the State Assembly that “political lobbying” is required to ensure that the Khasi and Garo languages are included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Sangma said that there are about 38 languages in the waiting list for inclusion in the Eighth Schedule and in the previous years, the process of taking this demand forward did not take place.
The Chief Minister was replying to a resolution moved by Congress MLA George Lyngdoh on the need for codification and standardization of the Khasi and Garo languages.
However, after the State Assembly passed a resolution to urge the Centre to include Khasi and Garo in the Eighth Schedule on November 27, 2018, there was some thrust to the demand.
“Political will and push did not happen earlier. The process has started, but a lot of political lobbying and push is required. This is an issue that has to be taken up at the political level,” Sangma maintained.
Stating that the inclusion of languages is a “massive and complex” exercise, the Chief Minister said that the Centre is also trying to work out how these languages could be included.
The State Government is continuously engaging with the Centre and recently, the matter was taken up with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit to the State, Sangma said.
Earlier, moving the resolution, Congress MLA Lyngdoh said it has become important for the State to address the linguistic variations, grammatical usages, spellings and lexicons of the Khasi and Garo languages.
Lyngdoh said that there should be official recognition of words where there is disparity in spelling. “(In Khasi), there are variations in spelling and this has created confusion among authors, students and common folks,” the Umroi legislator pointed out.
