Vijayawada: The state govt’s decision to make all its orders available in Telugu has been hailed by civil society and language enthusiasts.
Though it is not the first time such a GO was issued on implementation of Telugu language, the latest orders are being seen as a welcome step towards preserving and promoting one of the country’s oldest languages.
However, doubts are also being raised on govt’s commitment to implement the orders, as multiple GOs issued earlier remained on paper.
While the Official Languages Act was passed in 1966, it was only after NTR became chief minister in 1983 that guidelines were issued for implementation of Telugu language in official communications.
After the Official Language Commission was constituted, some effort was made back then to implement the order. Subsequently, the commission became defunct till 2012.
The World Telugu Conference (WTC), which is supposed to be conducted every year, was held after 22 years, and the commission resumed work. Thousands of delegates attended the conference, and some key resolutions were made for the promotion of Telugu.
However, none of the proposals were implemented despite issuing of orders for some of the proposals, like using Telugu language in all official communications, which is also the mandate of the legislation.
Other proposals included writing the names on all commercial establishments in Telugu prominently, keeping Telugu as a compulsory subject till class X, joining the World Unicode Consortium for development of a Telugu Unicode-based script, annual events for promotion of the language, and all court proceedings except for the high court in Telugu.
Dr Guntupalli Srinivas moved the high court in 2021 with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking directions to implement the Official Languages Act in letter and spirit. According to him, only 13% of Andhra Pradesh people can understand English. Govt told the high court that it is taking steps to implement Telugu in all govt businesses, from the state secretariat to the village secretariat.
However, the undertaking given by govt was also not implemented.
The PIL is coming up for final hearing next week.
