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Panel to study inclusion of languages in Schedule 8 soon, says PM

Prime Minister A B Vajpayee said in Madras tonight that a committee would be set up soon to study the feasibility of treating all 19 languages included in Schedule 8 of the Constitution as official lanaguages.

Addressing a rally to mark the 90th birth anniversary of Dravidian leader C N Annadurai organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party's ally, the Marumalarchi DMK, on the sands of the Marina beach, Vajpayee said the national agenda for governance, which was the policy blueprint for his government, had stated that a committee would be set up to study the feasibility.

He said Anna, who became a member of the Rajya Sabha in 1962 along with him, had wanted all Indian languages to be constitutionally treated as national languages.

The prime minister recalled that in one of the debates Anna had said: "I would press for the amendment of the Constitution to name all Indian languages as national languages," and pointed out that he had then endorsed Anna's view.

Vajpayee said while Anna's love for his mother tongue, Tamil, was boundless, he was not anti-Hindi.

While the parties they headed, the Jan Sangh and the DMK, had differences on many counts, they had a high level of mutual admiration and affection.

UNI

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