Modi govt made zero progress on demand for declaring Marathi as classical language: Congress

Jairam Ramesh. File Pic

The Congress has alleged said that on Sunday that the Modi government had made "zero progress" toward the demand to recognise Marathi as a classical language, citing the language's 2,200-year literary heritage, reported PTI.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said that the demand has been pending with the PM Modi government for the last 10 years.

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According to the PTI, former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had constituted a committee comprising Marathi language experts under the chairmanship of eminent scholar Prof. Ranganath Pathare, he pointed out.

The report was submitted to the Union government, and former CM Chavan wrote to the then minister of culture Shripad Naik requesting him to fulfil the demand in July 2014, Ramesh said in a post on X.

"Ten years later, the Modi Sarkar has made zero progress on this front," he claimed, the PTI reported.

Ramesh also pointed out that between 2004 and 2014, Manmohan Singh's government had given classical language status to the following languages --? Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013) and Odia (February 2014), as per the PTI.

"The 'Modi Sarkar' has given classical language status to zero languages," he said.

Jairam Ramesh said that Marathi has a rich literary tradition of 2,200 years, and the earliest inscription in Marathi (called Maharashtri Prakrit) belongs to the 1st century BCE.

It is certainly not an offshoot of any other language and has evolved independently of local dialects, the Congress leader said, the news agency reported.

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(with PTI and ANI)