Meghalaya Assembly passes unanimous resolution for inclusion of Khasi & Garo languages in Eighth Schedule

Shillong, Sept 27: Members of the Meghalaya Assembly have unanimously passed a resolution to urge the Centre to include Khasi and Garo languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

The resolution was passed through a voice vote after Chief Minister, Conrad K. Sangma tabled the resolution in the House on the last day of the five-day Autumn Session here on Thursday.

Before passing the resolution, Conrad said that getting the two languages included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution was a long demand and every citizen of the state wanted that the demand should be fulfilled.

He termed it a historic moment for the state as members of the House unanimously supported the resolution.

Congress MLA from Mawsynram, H.M Shangpliang thanked the state government for tabling the resolution and said, “We will go all out to demand from the Centre to ensure that the two languages are included in the Eighth Schedule.”

Opposition Congress legislator, P.T. Sawkmie said that the demand should materialize because when a language survives, the race survives.

The resolution stated that according to the census 2011, Garo at present has a language population 9,36,496 respectively.

Stating that the Khasi and Garo languages have fulfilled many of the required criteria, the resolution said, “languages not having a script of their own also have been recognized such as Bodo. Hence, Khasi and Garo languages can be recognized.”

Garo belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of languages. At post graduate level, Garo was introduced as a subject in 1996, but it was recognized as Major Indian Language by the Guwahati University when it was established in 1947 and at a pre-university level in 1969.

The Khasi Authors Society which was formed on September 11, 1979, has been working for strengthening the demand and has been pursuing it for more than 39 years.

Khasi belongs to the Austro-Asiatic family in the Mon-Khmer group. It is widely spoken in Meghalaya and in parts of Assam and Bangladesh. The only language belonging to this family which has been included in the Eighth Schedule so far is Santali.

The Khasi Authors’ Society said that according to the 2011 census, there are 14,31,344 people in India who spoke Khasi. Khasi, as a written language, has completed 176 years.

Khasi got due recognition from the Calcutta University upto the entrance level since 1900, and at the degree level since 1919 in the same university. The language is being taught from the primary school level up to the PhD level.

In 2005, the Meghalaya Assembly had also passed the Meghalaya Language Act which recognized Khasi and Garo as the state’s associate official languages. But English continues to be an official language as no other language links the Khasi, Jaiñtia and the Garo communities.

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