Celebration of the mother tongue in Lok Sabha

It was a day when they could speak their mother tongue in full flow.

It was the International Mother Language Day and the linguistic celebration took place in the Lok Sabha.

The hour saw interventions in as many as 15 languages, including Bhojpuri and Brij Bhasha, which are not included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

In the case of three listed languages __ Gujarati, Malayalam and Telugu, the absence of translators posed difficulties. So, the members who spoke in these languages had to don the mantle of translators too.

The hour-long impromptu "celebration" gave fresh impetus to the long-standing demands, such as inclusion of Bhojpuri and Brij Bhasha in the Eighth Schedule and declaration of Telugu and Kannada as classical languages; a status that Tamil already enjoys.

That the decision to observe International Mother Language Day was taken at the 11th hour was evident from the fact that it found no mention in the revised list of business for the day.

Also, barring those who attended the customary meeting at the Speaker's chamber ahead of the proceedings, most members were in the dark. Most faces wore a look of surprise when Speaker Somnath Chatterjee broke into Bengali.

Introducing the subject, Mr. Chatterjee said February 21 was observed as International Mother Language Day globally, commemorating those who had sacrificed their lives on this day in Dhaka in 1952, asserting their right to speak Bangla.

Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, Basudeb Acharia (Communist Party of India-Marxist) and Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI) joined the Speaker in saluting the martyrs. All three spoke in Bengali and Mr. Dasgupta said this was the first time he had spoken in his mother tongue in the House.

In fact, the suggestion to observe the day came from Mr. Acharia and Mr. Dasgupta during the leaders' meeting on Tuesday.

Warming up to the idea, the Speaker sought the permission of party leaders to initiate the proceedings himself, by making a short statement.

Thereafter, there was a clamour among the members to express themselves in their mother tongue.

The country's linguistic diversity was in full flow in Bhojpuri, Urdu, Tamil, Oriya, Kannada, Punjabi, Manipuri, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Konkani, Rajasthani and Brij Bhasha.

There was no stopping the members. Even after doing away with the lunch break, the Speaker had to cut short the discussion, forcing the tail-enders to associate with the celebration without expressing themselves in their mother tongue.