GANGTOK: The language issue is gaining momentum in the Himalayan regions — both eastern India and adjoining Nepal.

While on this side Sikkim chief Minister Nar Bhadaur Bhandari has taken the lead to get Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao to include Nepali in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution through a Bill in Parliament the Nepal Sadbhavna Party (NSP) an organization of Nepalese of Indian origin living mostly in the region is agitating for the recognition of Hindi as an official language in the Himalayan kingdom.

At a three day convention of the NSP last month its president Gajendra Narayam Singh threatened a major agitation for the realization of its demands NSPs other demands are recruitment of the Terai residents in the Nepalese army arrangements to enable them to join the Indian Gorkha Regiment and 50% job reservation Re then. The NSP convention was marked by militant outbursts One of the senior leaders Ramjanam Tiwari threatened food blockade from the term known as Nepals rice bowl to starve the people into submission. Hridesh Tripathy MP who had earlier warned of an impending civil war in Nepal because of the government’s refusal to meet the demands of the people of Indian region said at the convention that earning recognition for Hindi as an official language was their birth right.

The Nepalese political parties are opposing the language recognition movement on the ground that Hindi is: not spoken in the region where in the people use dialects like Bhoi puri and wadhi. The NSP which also favours intimate bilateral relations with India in response to Nepal’s geopolitical realities is considered by the Nepalese political parties as an organ of the government of India.

In India Bhandar is Bharatiya Nepal Rashtriya Parishad (BNRP) has submitted a memorandum signed by over 100 MPs to the Prime Minister demanding recognition for the Nepali language. The PM himself is on record saying that he is sympathetic to the demand.

But politicians in the eastern Himalayan region are peeved by the letter which Union home minister S.B.Chavan wrote to the CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member from Darjeeling B. Rai.

Chavan said in the leters “The government is of the view that inclusion of more languages in the Eighth Schedule will create other repercussions and reactions. However it will continue to be the endeavor of the government to develop the cultural and literary heritage of the languages irrespective of their being included in the Schedule or not”.

In fact in answer to a pointed question raised by Fai in December on whether the government considered Nepali a foreign language Union Minister of state for home M. M Jacob informed that in the 196 census a distinction was made between foreign and Indian languages.

Nepali was not treated as a foreign language at that time . In subsequent census operations distinction between foreign and non-foreign languages has not been maintained. This immediately triggered off another controversy why did Jacob avoid a straight forward answer?

Perhaps it is because of these reasons that the campaign on the language issue has been intensified by the opposition camp.

Bhandari however has ruled out any anti Mandal type agitation on the language issue though he claims to have received offers of self-immolation from 765 Indian Nepalese from different parts of the country.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 24, 1992