Navi Mumbai: The Navi Mumbai wing of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena has decided to wage a war of 'letters' with the Centre to get across the message of the long-pending demand of according Marathi the status of a classical language. The MNS has accused the central government of needlessly delaying this announcement, despite the unanimous approval of the Linguistic Committee of the Sahitya Akademi, Government of India, four years ago. In a Gandhigiri-style protest, the MNS has asked its partymen and supporters to send 10,000 postcards in Marathi to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The postcard protest is the first step, after which pressure will be stepped up, the MNS has warned.
"Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia have already been accorded the status of classical languages, so why not Marathi?" the MNS is asking, threatening a stir over this issue. Marathi had been cleared for classical language status over four years ago, but matters did not progress further. The Ranganath Pathare committee had provided the necessary documentation and first submitted an interim report in Marathi in July 2013 and then its final report in English to the Centre but matters have not progressed since and no reason has been given for the delay. The MNS has appealed to all the Marathi-speaking public to join the drive.
For a language to be eligible for classical status, some of the criteria include high antiquity of its early texts, a recorded history over a period of 1,500-2000 years, a body of ancient literature/ texts, an original literary tradition not borrowed from another speech community and the language and literature distinct from modern, among other requirements. The awarding of this status to Marathi will entitle the state government to an annual grant of Rs 500 crore from the Centre for further promotion of the language. "Our state government is not putting any pressure on Centre to accomplish this, which is why we are starting this campaign," said an MNS official.
