The chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has assured to accord mother tongue –Marathi a classical language status. The chief minister said, “The government will do its best to acquire the status of classical language for Marathi.” In the last six decades the political parties across party lines have debated the classical language status for Marathi both in Maharashtra legislature as well as Indian parliament. But successive Congress and NCP government’s repeated attempts have not resulted in positive outcome. According to Fadnavis, “There is no ambiguity that the Marathi language with its rich cultural and literary heritage deserves the classical language status. And the matter would be taken up with the concerned authority at centre.” He indicated that if there are some procedures which needs to be followed like providing more documentary evidences etc would be adhered to by the government. The decision which has to be taken by the centre mandates the state government should provide adequate documents to establish the existence of the language older than 1500 years ago. Earlier, successive chief ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh, Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan also had given the commitment to work for classical language status for Marathi. As per the centre’s guidelines the parameters required for declaring a language classical are –documentary evidence to show its existence in form of texts/ historical evidence that goes back to 1500 years to 2000 years. Interestingly, after the language is given the classical status, it paves the way for financial assistance for setting up a language study centre of excellence and two major awards for scholars. The government can also urge the University Grants Commission for at least one in Central Universities – a certain number of professional chairs for classical languages for scholars of eminence in the language. Fadnavis has decided to expedite the process as already the recommendations were made in the past . However, Malayalam have already got the classical language status. And the union cabinet has given the nod for Odisa too. At present Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada and Malayalam enjoy the classical language status. In the recent past government had set up panels to substantiate Maharashtra government’s claim for Marathi’s classical language status. A committee headed by author Ranganath Pathare, with historian-sociologist Hari Narke as the coordinator submitted a report recommending the classical language status for Marathi. The findings of the report states, “The existence of Marathi as an independent language goes back to more than 2,000 years. A stone carving discovered in Junnar taluka of Pune mentions about Maharathi language. Now, Maharathi is same as Marathi, is it stated. The report also cites on how there are documented references Maharathi, Desi, Maharashtrian Parkit that can be associated with Marathi.
