Official State Languages query
Peter J. Claus
pclaus at haywire.csuhayward.edu
Tue Aug 20 14:56:45 UTC 1996
While there is perhaps no law prohibiting having a school to teach any
particular language, the question is rather what the medium of
instruction is. I believe that several sates have, in fact, placed
restrictions on even private schools teaching in English and other
language (eg. Urdu; Marathi in Karnataka, etc.) mediums. But possibly
this has only to do with government recognition -- which is required in
order to get the government to pay the teachers' salaries. I am not
clear on the details, but my point is that the examples cited evade the
major political issues concerned.
On Tue, 20 Aug 1996, Narayan S. Raja wrote:
> Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 04:52:55 BST
> From: Narayan S. Raja <raja at galileo.IFA.Hawaii.Edu>
> To: Members of the list <indology at liverpool.ac.uk>
> Subject: Re: Official State Languages query
>
>
>
> On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 gail at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:
>
> > The important point
> > is granting people the *right* to open schools in their own languages.
>
> I'm pretty sure that this is
> not an issue at all, i.e., i.e.,
> it is perfectly legal, right now,
> to start a school and teach in
> any language one wants! Whether
> that school would be eligible for
> govt. subsidies, or whether govt.
> subsidies would be available to
> print textbooks in that language,
> is a different matter. There are
> three reasons why I think that this
> "right" already exists:
>
> 1. I would guess that there is, in
> fact, NO LAW that either explicitly
> permits, or prohibits, opening a school
> in whatever language one chooses --
> just as there is probably no law
> that explicitly permits, or prohibits,
> people from wearing any ethnic clothes
> they feel like. I.e., I guess that
> just as there is no reason to press for a
> law that explicitly permits people to wear
> langotis -- the current legal position
> presumably being that the law is blind
> to langotis -- similarly, there is no
> reason to press for a law that explicitly
> allows, or disallows, teaching in any language.
> 2. Further, I would guess that the right to
> teach in any language is already
> implied by the Fundamental Right
> to "freedom of expression". Probably,
> this has never been tested in the courts,
> for the simple reason that in India,
> nobody could care less if you want to
> teach, in, say, Albanian, so long as
> you don't ask the govt. to pay for it.
> 3. New States are created, and additional
> languages are added to Section no. whatever
> of the Constitution, with monotonous
> regularity. For example, Nepali and
> Konkani were added only recently. I
> strongly doubt that Konkani- or Nepali-
> medium schools were illegal, or non-existent,
> before some politicians in Delhi got
> around to adding those languages to the list.
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Raja.
>
>
>
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