Grateful to PM Modi for classical language status to Marathi: Devendra Fadnavis

Devendra Fadnavis. File Pic

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Central government's decision to accord the 'classical language' status to Marathi.

"This is a golden letter day. On behalf of the 12 crore people of Maharashtra, I thank PM Modi for this decision," Devendra Fadnavis said, according to the PTI.

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Fadnavis said that when he was Maharashtra CM, the state government led by him had taken up the issue of according the classical language status to Marathi with the Centre.

The present government, led by CM Eknath Shinde, also continued efforts in the direction, Devendra Fadnavis said, as per the PTI.

The Union Cabinet approved the decision conferring status of classical language to Marathi, an official statement said on Thursday.

An official statement said that the Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved to confer the status of classical language to Marathi.

In addition to Marathi, Bengali, Pali, Prakrit and Assamese were also given a classical status. With this cabinet decision, the number of languages that have the status will be 11. Earlier, only six language - Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia had the classical language tag.

Classical languages serve as a custodian of Bharat's profound and ancient cultural heritage, embodying the essence of each community's historical and cultural milestone, it said.

The statement said that a proposal from the Maharashtra Government in 2013 was received in the Ministry requesting Classical Language status to Marathi, which was forwarded to the Linguistics Experts Committee (LEC).

The LEC recommended Marathi for classical language and during the inter-ministerial consultations on the draft note for cabinet in 2017 for conferring classical status to the Marathi language, MHA advised to revise the criteria and make it stricter. The PMO vide its comment stated that the Ministry may conduct an exercise to find out how many other languages are likely to become eligible.

It further said that in the meantime, proposal from Bihar, Assam, West Bengal was also received for conferring status of Classical Language to Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali.

Accordingly, Linguistics Experts Committee (under Sahitya Akademi) in a meeting on 25.07.2024, unanimously revised the criteria as below. Sahitya Akademi has been appointed as nodal agency for the LEC.

(with PTI inputs)