The holding of the fourth World Telugu Conference (WTC) in such a prestigious manner will be a waste of time and money unless the State Government makes Telugu a compulsory subject in primary schools.
Making this observation at a press conference here on Monday Tirupati YSR Congress MLA Bhumana Karunakara Reddy said it should constitute an empowered committee for the protection of the language.
Mr. Reddy said that to hold a World Telugu Conference without any proper proposals or plans to protect and enrich the language would only lead to “abuse of public money”. He said that it was unfortunate that nothing was done to protect Telugu in the onslaught of globalisation.
The UNESCO has listed Telugu as one of the languages several that were facing the danger of disappearing due to globalisation. Telugu is the mother-tongue of 15 crore people, but it was listed along with languages that were the mother tongue of populations of 10 to 15 lakh. He said that hundreds of foreign words were being absorbed into Telugu displacing words of the language.
There would be some meaning in the conference if the government was able to make the teaching of Telugu as compulsory subject in primary school and constitute an empowered committee to protect Telugu. He said the Official language commission had no powers and was therefore ornamental and vestigial in nature. Ironically, WTC was being conducted after a gap of 37 years by Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, who is very poor in the language. Mr. Karunakara Reddy recalled that Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy was among the leaders who ridiculed him for conducting the Telugu language “Bramotsavams”.
‘Real lovers’
He said that real lovers of Telugu language would stay away from the WTC and only those who had no real worth, but enjoyed being felicitated would go for the conference. He alleged that the WTC would be a mere party mela without any proper goal or objective.
