The Meghalaya government has been weak in the pursuit of inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, the Khasi Authors’ Society (KAS) president has told Highland Post.
DR Lyngdoh Nonglait said that, after the state passed a resolution in the Assembly for the inclusion of Khasi and Garo in the Eighth Schedule, the government has not pushed the Centre on the issue, at least not in public.
The Prime Minister, Union Home Minister and now even the President have all visited Meghalaya since the resolution was passed but nothing was put into the public domain about whether the issue of the Eighth Scheduled was discussed, Nonglait said.
“The claims by our ministers that they have taken up this issue during their frequent visits to Delhi have no authentic evidence to [back them up],” he stated.
KAS has been one of the organisations at the coalface when it comes to pushing for inclusion of Khasi and late last year took their case to the national capital by holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar and a seminar on the subject.
Some politicians also attended these but Nonglait, while appreciative of their presence, expressed regret that there was no real discussion or follow-up.
KAS’s request that an official bill to include Khasi be introduced to Parliament in the recently-concluded winter session came to nought, while Nonglait said, is evidence that the state government did not push the Centre on the issue. KAS’s submission of its demand to the Union Home Ministry was not even responded to.
The society will soon announce its next course of action. “The national seminar in Delhi and our demonstration in Jantar Mantar were not considered but we will not rest and continue to fight for the issue,” he maintained.
When asked about suggestions that a new resolution should be passed by the state Assembly, since a new government has come to power since the passage of the original resolution, Nonglait disagreed, saying that only rigorous follow-up action is required.
