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It is sad that, the Government of Orissa is not obeying its own Official Language Act, when use of the language of the people in administration is self-validated and above all questions in a democracy, said India’s famous Professor of Linguistics Dr. Bibudhendra Narayan Patnaik, who, after 22 years in IIT, Kanpur, advises Govt. of India in language matters in the Council for the promotion of Indian Languages. He is in the Working Group on Language Development and Book Promotion for Formulation of the Eleventh Five-year Plan and also in the Committee of Experts to Consider Future Demands for Categorization of Languages as Classical Languages. To him,Govt. of Orissa is entirely in fault by not serving the people in Oriya despite the State having a Law for this since 1954.
Extending wholehearted support to Subhas Chandra Pattanayak, founder of Bhasha Andolan, which is spearheading the demand for governance of Orissa in Oriya, Prof. Patnaik underlined that, the administration shall have to run in Oriya Language, as otherwise, the the general public would continue to be debarred from the fundamental right to expression as well as from informed participation in democracy. He lauded Sri Pattanayak and his friends for the unique movement that has reached 1657 days absolutely peacefully to educate the govt. of the day on how to implement the Law enacted by the first Assembly to use Oriya as the official language in Orissa.
The Silent Black Flag Campaign of Bhasha Andolan having been transformed into digital form under exigencies of COVID-19, an illustrious scholar in the matter is discussing the issue ‘LIVE’ in Facebook, every Monday, highlighting why the movement is justified in its demand.
Dr. Patnaik thus speaking on October 26, stated that, disuse of mother tongue in administration adversely affects the most disadvantaged poor and helps middlemen to prosper. The Govt. is not only legally bound to run Orissa in Oriya, but also is morally bound to do so. Penal action against whosoever contravenes the Language Law and debars the people from their language rights is a necessity, he said.
From Facebook-live, Prof. Patnaik’s speech is reproduced here through YouTube :
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