Centres For Promotion Of Classical Languages Demands Autonomy

There have been demands for more autonomy in the functioning of the special centres for the promotion of Classical Languages Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia.

Centres for Classical Languages

Once a language is notified as a classical language, the Education Ministry is required to set up a Centre of Excellence for Studies for the said classical language.
Center for Classical Languages Status: India has six classical languages viz. Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014).
- The Centre for Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia function under the aegis of the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru.
- The Centre for Tamil is autonomous and is named Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT).
- Sanskrit is promoted through three Central Universities.

Reasons For the Demand for Autonomy

Funding Crunch: The centers face financial crunch which hampers its organising capability as any event or activity planned has to be sanctioned by the CIIL before.
- The Project Director of the center has no financial drawing power and has to take approval from the Director of CIIL.
High vacancy: The absence of regular funds results in vacancies in many positions for research scholars as well as administrative staff.
- Example: Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Telugu (Andhra Pradesh) have only 12 staff out of 36 approved
Prioritisation: The focus of the central government is unequivocally towards the promotion of Sanskrit with a budget of ₹643.84 crore spent between 2017-18 and 2019-20, whereas only ₹29 crore was spent on other five classical Indian languages

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Classical Languages

A classical language is one that has its own literature and a significant and ancient corpus of written script.
All the Classical Languages are listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Criteria for designating the Classical Language Status: The Ministry of Culture offers rules that must be followed in order to be classified as a classical language in India.
- Ancient Origin: High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1,500-2,000 years.
- Literary Heritage: Contain a body of ancient literature or texts that is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
- Originality: The literary tradition should be original and not borrowed from another speech community.
- Discontinuity from Modern Avatars: The said language and literature should be distinct from its modern format with a marked discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.
Benefits of the Special Status: Once a language is notified as a classical language, certain benefits are provided by the Education Ministry to promote it,
- The HRD ministry conducts 2 major annual international awards for scholars of eminence in the said languages.
- A centre of excellence for studies in the classical language is set up.
- University Grants Commission is requested to create a certain number of Professional Chairs in Central universities for the languages that get the classical tag.
- The University Grant Commission (UGC) also awards research projects for promoting these languages.

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