Scant attention to Assamese as official language: Gauhati High Court issues notice to Dispur

GUWAHATI: A division bench of the Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice Vijay Bishnoi and Justice N. Unni Krishnan Nair issued a notice to the Assam Government on the issue of ‘not taking any effective measures for protecting the Assamese language’. The notice asked Dispur to reply to the notice by June 28, 2024.

The bench of the High Court issued the notice to the state government after hearing the PIL (23/2024) filed by Advocate Sandeep Chamaria.

In his petition, advocate Chamaria said that the local regional language is always playing an important role in the uplift of ethnicity and education in society, and there is no doubt that the Assamese language has historical value since the ninth century onwards. “But it is also pertinent to state here that after the entrance of the British in Assam, it has faced numerous ups and downs for its survival and existence. After independence, in terms of the constitutional provisions laid out in Article 345 of the Constitution of India, the Assam Official Language Act, 1960, was introduced for the purpose of giving proper value to the regional language. In Section 3 of the said Act, it has been specifically mentioned as to how the said Assamese language is required to be used by the Government of Assam while dealing with different subjects connected to government affairs. But surprisingly, the aims and object of the said Act, as of date, are becoming dormant, and the various departments of the state government are showing the least interest in following in the footsteps of the said statute in true spirit,” the petitioner said.

The petitioner further said, “It is also pertinent to mention here that the state government has not set up any separate ‘Directorate Office’ for promoting and protecting the Assamese language like the other state governments that have already taken prompt steps for setting up such a separate  directorate office for promoting their local language within and outside their region. Again, the Government of Assam has also not formulated any ‘Rules’ as envisaged under Section 8 of the said 1960 Act, which itself proves that the State Government is showing least interest in proper implementation of the said Act for protecting the Assamese language in a real sense within this region. Again, some states made major amendments to their official language acts, more particularly the Maharashtra Official Languages (Amendment) Act, 2021, but till date no such initiative has been adopted by the State Government of Assam. As a result, the Assamese language is facing a great threat from all corners and, consequently, creates a serious concern for its survival in the future as well. Further, despite the ‘Assamese Language Learning Act, 2020’ being in force as of date, the study of the Assamese language as a compulsory subject being in force as of date, the study of the Assamese language as a compulsory subject is far away from implementation in the educational institutions, and in this race, the private schools of the state are at first arrow, who, despite giving total goodbye to this Assamese paper as a compulsory subject, the concerned Education Department of the Government of Assam is also showing a very inattentive attitude for such lapses, out of which the promotion of the Assamese language has been irreparably affected even in educational institutions of Assam. Accordingly, the petitioner, in the interest of the public, is before this Court by filing the instant application seeking adequate reliefs.”

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