IGNCA’s ‘language atlas’ to shine a light on India’s linguistic diversity

Subject: History

Section: Art and Culture

Context:

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), under the Union Culture Ministry, plans to conduct a linguistic survey to enumerate the languages spoken across different states and regions. This survey aims to provide clarity on the number of active languages.

Details:

India is undertaking efforts to promote education in the mother tongue, particularly at the primary level, prompting questions about the actual number of “active” languages in the country.
India officially recognizes 22 languages listed in Schedule 8 of the Indian Constitution, spoken by 97% of the population according to Census data.
Additionally, the Census includes 99 non-scheduled languages, with approximately 37.8 million people identifying one of these as their mother tongue.
However, languages spoken by fewer than 10,000 people have been excluded from the Census since 1971, leaving the native languages of 1.2 million people unaccounted for.
This decision disproportionately affects tribal communities, whose languages are often not included in official records.

Need for a ‘Language Atlas’:

The most comprehensive linguistic data was collected in the 1961 Census, which recorded languages spoken by even a single individual.
There is a pressing need for a new comprehensive linguistic survey to create the Language Atlas of India.
This survey would not only update the current linguistic data but also support future policy decisions.
The Detailed Project Report (DPR) by the IGNCA lists several stakeholders for the survey, including Ministries of Culture, Education, Tribal Affairs, Home, Social Justice and Empowerment, and Development of North East Region, as well as various language communities.
The IGNCA intends to collaborate with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, the National Museum, Centres for Endangered Languages, and Linguistic Departments of various universities to conduct the survey.

UNESCO Global Taskforce on Indigenous Languages:

For the organization of the International Decade (2022- 2032), UNESCO established a Global Task Force for Making a Decade of Action for Indigenous Languages.
The Global Task Force ensures that the principles of inclusion, openness, participation and multi-stakeholder engagement are respected and applied throughout the International Decade.
The mandate of the Global Task Force:
- As an international governance mechanism, the Global Task Force is established to ensure the equitable participation of all stakeholders in the IDIL2022-2032 and to provide guidance on the preparation, planning, implementation and monitoring of activities, in line with the objectives of the Global Action Plan of the IDIL2022-2032.