Demand to make Rajasthani official language of state gets momentum

The demand to include Rajasthani language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution is long pending before the Central government. Now a movement has started to make it as the official language of the state.

Hundreds of young Rajasthanis gathered at the Shaheed Smarak in Jaipur on Monday and demanded the state government give Rajasthani the status of the official language of Rajasthan.

Office-bearers of student unions of various universities, student organisations including ruling Congress’s student wing NSUI and youth from different districts gathered for the candle march in Jaipur in support of the demand.

The movement called Helo Mayad Bhasha Ro (call for my mother tongue) has been started by the Rajasthani Yuva Samiti and the day of The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas chosen to get the support of non-resident Rajasthani spread all over the world. The samiti launched this movement on Twitter too, with #राजस्थानीमांगेराजभासा and made it trending with more than 2,00,000 tweets.

National advisor of Rajasthani Yuva Samiti, Rajveer Singh Chalkoi said, “The budget session of the assembly is to start in the next few days and we want the assembly to pass the proposal to give official language status to the Rajasthani language.’

Mr Rajveer said that our organisation is spreading awareness among the youth and it is good to see that youth have started writing songs, plays, films, music, and poems in Rajasthani and have no hesitation in speaking Rajasthani in public too. Chalkoi is a historian and inspires youth and students to respect the history of Rajasthan as well as the language and the great literature of Rajasthan.

It may be mentioned that the demand to give constitutional status to the Rajasthani language is long pending before the Central government. Several organisations have sent their memorandum to the Central government in this regard.

Mr Rajveer said the state government in 2003 had sent the proposal to the Central government that Brij, Mewati, Dhundhari, Marwari and all the other dialects together make the Rajasthani language. “Though the proposal is pending before the Central government but at least the state government should do something for it and we want the government to implement the same proposal in the state,” he added.