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Don’t kill our language; work in Oriya – roared Dr. Tamasarani DasMohapatra, former Director of the State Government’s Institute of Oriya Language (Oriya Bhasha Pratisthan) on October 5, coming live on BHASHA MAA PA’N PADE, the digital platform of virtual Black-Flag-Campaign of Bhasha Andolan in Facebook. She came down heavily upon the State Government over its questionable conduct in implementation of Orissa Official Language Act.
The audience got in her speech the echo of the Bhasha Andolan voice that our people would not have been ruined beyond repair, had all the health advice and official guidelines been made available to them in Oriya instead of English.
She mentioned of how the Institute under her had imparted training to bureaucrats from 22 departments to work in Oriya in the offices. Had they been used by the Government, all the COVID19 guidelines could have been produced in Oriya and people could have escaped the danger to their life. That didn’t happen, because there is no language policy to work in Oriya language.
THE LANGUAGE POLICY she had formulated as Director of Bhasha Pratisthan was lost to oblivion in the Headquarters of the Government, as therein punishment against disuse of Oriya (as proposed by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak in the Ministerial Committee) was emphasized, she disclosed.
The anti-Oriya attitude of administration would kill the Oriya language, she said. Those that are pooh-poohing the fear that disuse of Oriya language in administration would kill it, are the worst enemy of Oriya Language. They do not know what death of a language means. The people’s language starts dying firstly when different organs of the administration and business transaction do not use it and secondly, when its use in social and academic life shrinks. These two most harmful factors are overwhelmingly severe in Orissa, she rued.
She called upon the Government to clarify whether Oriya language is to live on its own independent magnificence or under the shadow of a foreign language.
She advanced a set of advice on the basis of her administrative experience on language, which, if accepted by the government, may he helpful to governance of Orissa in Oriya.
Updated with posting in YouTube: