Actor Ravi Kishan tables bill to grant official language status to Bhojpuri

Bhojpuri superstar and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament Ravi Kishan has introduced a private member bill in Lok Sabha to include Bhojpuri in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution so that it can be accorded the status of an official language.

Kishan, who introduced The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2024, on July 26, said he wants to underline that the Bhojpuri language is not about crass songs but has a rich cultural history and literature which needs to be promoted.

"So many people speak and understand this language. It is our mother tongue. I wanted to promote this language as a film industry is also being run in this language and lakhs are getting employment. The music industry is also very big," the BJP MP from Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur said.

This bill is about promoting Bhojpuri literature which is very rich, he said.

"People will take the language seriously. The language is not about crass songs. The language is so rich, it also has literature," Kishan said.

The literature of Bhojpuri needs to be popularized, the actor-cum-politician said. "I want to pay back to my community. This language is my identity."

In its statement of objects and reasons, the bill notes that the Bhojpuri language which originated in the Gangetic plains of India is a very old and rich language having its origin in the Sanskrit language.

Bhojpuri is the mother tongue of a large number of people residing in Uttar Pradesh, Western Bihar, Jharkhand and some parts of Madhya Pradesh as well as in several other countries, it further notes.

In Mauritius, this language is spoken by a large number of people and it is estimated that around 140 million people speak Bhojpuri, the bill's note on objective states.

The bill notes that Bhojpuri films are very popular in the country and abroad and have a deep impact on the Hindi film industry.

"Bhojpuri language has a rich literature and cultural heritage. The great scholar Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan wrote some of his work in Bhojpuri. There have been some other eminent writers of Bhojpuri like Viveki Rai and Bhikhari Thakur, who is popularly known as the 'Shakespeare of Bhojpuri'," the bill says in its statement of objects and reasons.

Some other eminent writers of Hindi such as Bhartendu Harishchandra, Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and Munshi Premchand were deeply influenced by the Bhojpuri literature, it points out.

The Bhojpuri language and its literature are gaining new heights because of the efforts made by various scholars, it states.

Many personalities with Bhojpuri background have achieved the highest positions in the country and various International Conferences have been organized to promote Bhojpuri, it further states.

At present, the Indira Gandhi National Open University is planning to start a certificate course in Bhojpuri language, the statement points out.

Recently, the Bhojpuri study center had been established in the Banaras Hindu University to propagate and develop the Bhojpuri language, it notes.

In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, movements have been initiated to give Bhojpuri language its due place but it is unfortunate that the "Bhojpuri" language is yet to find a place in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution, the statement says.

For the promotion of literacy and the development of this language, it is necessary that it be included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution, the statement asserts.

The inclusion of Bhojpuri in the Eighth Schedule has been an old demand of people who speak this language. The Eighth Schedule lists the official languages of the country.

Originally, there were 14 languages in the schedule, now there are 22.

A private member's bill is a legislative proposal that is initiated by an individual Member of Parliament, who is not a Minister.

The importance of private member's bills lies in the fact that they enable legislators to draw attention to issues which might not be represented in Government Bills, or to highlight the issues and gaps in the existing legal framework requiring legislative intervention.

While it is true that only a small number of private member's bills, 14 to be exact, have successfully been enacted into law, their impact cannot be understated.

(PTI)