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JAMMU &KASHMIR OFFICIAL LANGUAGES BILL GETS PRESIDENTIAL ASSENT
JAMMU &KASHMIR OFFICIAL LANGUAGES BILL GETS PRESIDENTIAL ASSENT
The J&K Official Languages Bill, 2020 attained the Presidential acceptance on Saturday. The Amendment Act has been passed to provide the languages to be used for the official purposes of the Union territory.
The languages mentioned in the Amendment are Kashmiri, Dogri, Urdu, Hindi, and English. These official languages are requested to be used for all official resolutions of Jammu and Kashmir. But English will still be used for legislative and administrative purposes, as before. For over 130 years Urdu was the only official language in the Union territory.
The Act directs the administrator to take necessary steps to reinforce the present mechanism like the Academy of Art Culture and languages for promoting the regional languages in Jammu and Kashmir. The Act says institutional procedures are to be set up for the advancement of Gojri, Pahari, and Punjabi.
The Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill, 2020 was passed by both the chambers.
G. Kishan Reddy, Minister of State for Home said in Parliament that nearly three-fourth of people in Jammu and Kashmir spoke Dogri, Kashmiri languages. According to a 2011 Census, only about 2.3% of people from J&K spoke in Hindi and about 0.16% of people speak in Urdu. He also said that the J&K government will take necessary steps to extend other local languages like Pahari and Punjabi. Naresh Gujral found the action of not including Punjabi in the Bill to be an “unfortunate” event. He reminded that the first Chief Minister of this Union territory, Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq, was a Punjabi and was stated that: “It hurts the feeling of those who are settled there. I would urge the government to reconsider because language is the basis of the cultural heritage of the community.” He said that about thirteen lakh Punjabis live in Jammu and Kashmir.”
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