Kerala CM Vijayan writes to PM Modi over ‘language discrimination’ in Delhi University

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Vijayan said that “the discrimination towards languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution”.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Tuesday wrote to the Prime Minister against alleged discrimination by the Delhi University against students who include Malayalam or several other languages in their ‘best of four’ while seeking admission to undergraduate courses.

The Indian Express had, on July 12, reported that Malayalam, Nepali, Tamil, Odia, Kannada, Marathi and several other languages were not listed as ‘academic subjects’ by DU, and attracted a 2.5% deduction in the aggregate marks if included in the ‘best of four’. The reason is that these are not included in the list of modern Indian languages recognised by DU, and the university does not have departments teaching these subjects.

Languages that can be included are Hindi, English, Persian, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Bengali and even Arabic.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Vijayan said that “the discrimination towards languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution”.
Vijayan further stated that “due to this condition, several students from Kerala were deprived admission to courses. All languages contained in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution should be included in the university’s list of recognised languages”.

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However, the Dean of Colleges, Devesh Sinha, said he is not aware about any such letter. “I am afraid the university is not aware of any such letter. If it comes to us, we will look into it,” said Sinha. Teachers said they are hopeful the university will take the letter seriously and make policy changes.

“Fifteen years ago, when I came to the university, I had written to several authorities for promotion of these languages, but nothing happened. The attitude of the university towards promotion of Indian languages has never been right,” said Uma Devi, a Tamil teacher in DU.

Midhun P P, an English (Hons) student at Kirori Mal College, said, “For more than 50 per cent of students from the Kerala state board, Malayalam is a second language. Being our mother tongue, we score very well in the subject. Now that our CM has intervened, we hope the university will take the matter seriously.”

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