Panaji: Writer and thinker Ganesh Devy on Friday lauded the People’s Language Survey of India initiated by the Vadodara-based Bhasha Research and Publication Centre as it would help document the many languages and tribal dialects of India.
Devy who was speaking on the topic of ‘Literary Lives’ on day one of the three-day Goa Art and Literature Festival (GALF) 2017 at the International Centre Goa (ICG) said that the survey comprised interviews with the common man on the street and had captured the pulse of the people.
“We interviewed ordinary citizens like bus drivers, illiterate people and even transgenders in compiling the data,” Mr. Devy said and added that every state had a survey report in English, Hindi and the state’s regional language. According to him, of the targeted 92 books, 45 books had been completed and the project would conclude in the year 2020.
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Expressing satisfaction that the survey would help in documenting the many languages and tribal dialects of India, Mr. Devy said, “Language sets us apart from other animal species.”
Expressing anguish at the murders of rationalists and intellectuals like Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi, Mr. Devy said, “Kalburgi was a Sahitya Akademi winner. But when the Akademi failed to issue a relevant statement after his death, I felt compelled to return my own Akademi award.”
Earlier in the day, Rajat Sethi and Shubhrastha, authors of ‘The last battle of Saraighat — The story of BJP’s rise in the North East’ explained how the recent electoral successes of the BJP in the North East were the direct result of the long-standing grass-root work put in by dedicated RSS cadres over the last 60 years.
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“In the 60s and 70s several RSS workers lost their lives at the hands of insurgents, but this did not deter their colleagues, who continued to work with the poorest of people in the villages of the North East,” Ms. Shubhrastha said.
According to the authors, RSS cadres had left behind comfortable homes in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Maharashtra to work selflessly in the remotest corners of the North-East. The authors attributed the BJP’s recent electoral successes in the region to this grassroot connect.