New Delhi, Nov. 10: The Kerala government has decided to try its luck at winning “classical language” status for Malayalam, the lone south Indian tongue that has not been granted the tag.
The state has decided to approach the UPA government with a detailed report on Malayalam’s antiquity and literary richness to push its claim to be on a par with other south Indian languages. The report will be submitted in a day or two.
Tamil, Kannada and Telugu have already been given classical language status by the UPA. Sanskrit also has similar status.
“All other south Indian languages have been accorded the status of classical language and Malayalam is the only one left out. Going by any standards, whether literary or linguistic, Malayalam too deserves to be considered a classical language,” Kerala education and cultural affairs minister M.A. Baby told The Telegraph.
He said the Union government should not “grade” languages in this manner. “This kind of grading will create an inferiority complex in the minds of people who speak a ‘non-classical’ language.”
Told that Malayalam did not meet the culture ministry’s criterion that a language should be at least 1,000 years old to be declared “classical”, Baby claimed the Centre had been diluting the terms and conditions under pressure from various quarters. “It is like changing the goal post to suit the striker.”
Baby said Kerala’s decision to “stake the claim is more of a kind of protest against the wrong cultural, linguistic and historic approach of the UPA government which is according classical language status under various pressures”.
.N.V. Kurup, the lyricist and poet who has prepared the report for the Kerala government, said: “All the four south Indian languages hail from the same mother known as proto-Dravidian language. Among the four, Tamil is closest to the mother language as it has resisted all kinds of Sanskritic influences because of strong anti-Aryan feelings.”
“The rest of the three languages are equally influenced by Sanskrit and has a similar literary and linguistic track record. Hence, we consider the Union government’s decision a discrimination against Malayalam,” he added.
Kurup said the fight was not merely for classical language status. “We just want to convey the message that grading languages is not a good practice as it is divisive. Language should unite and not disintegrate.”
However, many Malayali literary and cultural personalities, including M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Sukumar Azhikode, K. Sachithanandan and V.R. Krishna Iyer, have come out against the cry for classical language status.
“Objectively speaking, Malayalam cannot claim the same antiquity as the rest of the south Indian languages. It is a relatively younger language, though it is much richer literary-wise,” Sachithanandan, a former Sahitya Akademi secretary, said.
