Kerala Governor seemingly has taken note of the anguish of Keralites on one of the recent decision of the Central Government. Central Government had declared two Indian languages to be classical languages. They happened to be languages from southern part of India, and one, of Kerala's immediate neighbour's.
Some of the politicians, including the Chief Minister and certain cultural figures in Kerala could locate in this decision, centre's disregard towards the state. The CM raised his concern in the following words as per the news;
“We can understand Sanskrit and Tamil getting the status of classical language. What was the yardstick used when Kannada and Telugu were given that status and Malayalam was not? What will happen if the people of other States also start clamouring for classical language status for their respective languages.”
All these reactions highlight certain interesting issues
1. The ignorence of people who make such accusations
2. The intolerence when others are recognised
3. Blind imputation of political motives to anyting
At the outset, there are four clear parameters to declare a language as classical language. These are,
a. The language should have a history of at least 1000 years
b. The language should have ancient literature and texts
c. The language should have originality
d. The language and its literature should have an existence distinct from other modern languages
Interestingly, these conditions are not prescribed by the central government but by the Sahitya Akademi based on the recommendations of an expert panel. Nowhere it is said that Kerala has ever tried to impress the authorities about the classical status of the languages, where as the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and their respective Sahitya Akademies have esablished their case before the centre.
The language experts of malayalam themselves admit that the language has a history of only 700 years.
On an evaluation, it becomes very clear that the accusation levelled by the chief of state himself is misinformed and myopic. It is nothing but sheer intolerence and the incompetency to establish one's own case. Everything is another political weapon in the hands of a government which recently broke of from the ruling partnership at the centre. There is a saying in malayalam, "ishtamillatha achi thottathokke kuttam" (everything is wrong that is done by a wife fallen out of favour).
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