BHUBANESWAR: Even at 71, Mahendra Kumar Mishra’s quest for learning about an ancient indigenous language, a folklore or an oral tradition is never ending. Because, the eminent linguist from Odisha feels language is not just a tool of communication but a repository of cultural traditions and heritage which needs to be saved, preserved and most importantly, integrated into the education system. He believes that if the language and culture of a community are in the classroom, then there is the possibility of their survival and maintenance into the future.
Having pioneered multilingual education in Odisha and documented more than 32 languages and folklores of many other states, Mishra has been chosen by UNESCO to receive its prestigious International Mother Language Award-2023 at Bangladesh next week.
The state coordinator for multilingual education in Odisha from 1996 to 2010 and the brain behind adopting mother tongue learning for primary grades, Mishra says it is the Odisha example of implementing mother tongue-based learning that has been adopted by the Ministry of Education in the National Education Policy-2020. Multilingual education is teaching students in their mother tongue before introducing them to Odia and English.
He covered 10 tribal languages and was instrumental in changing the teacher recruitment policy to post mother tongue teachers in respective communities. The Sahitya Akademi awardee (1999), however, feels the current multilingual education system in Odisha should be further strengthened and monitored for students to benefit.
Mishra is currently helping governments of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in introducing primary education in Halbi and Wagdi languages for children belonging to Halba and Bhil tribes respectively. And through his city-based Folklore Foundation that he founded over a decade back, he and his team of researchers are preserving the folklore and oral traditions of the country. Among the various publications, the foundation has been publishing a journal called ‘Lokaratna’ twice in a year with the help of Cambridge University since 2008. “We have so far published 25 volumes of the journal with 500 scholars across the globe contributing on many aspects of folklore and allied subjects,” he said.
Mishra, who continues to document and promote Odia folklore, says since Odisha is a traditional society, the richness of its oral tradition and folklore is unmatched in the country. “The oral tradition of the state has songs, idioms, stories, proverbs, legends, mythologies and much more,” says Mishra who is currently the trustee of Language and Learning Foundation at New Delhi and also the national advisor for multilingual education.
The linguist, however, has a word of concern when it comes to Odia language. He says the purity of the language is being compromised in the current times. “At one hand, Odia enjoys a classical language status but on the other, it is being encroached upon by Hindi and English in such a manner that the new generation is not well versed with the classicity of Odia language.
They are not aware of its rich literature and its time, the government did something about this,” says Mishra, who hails from Kalahandi and has also authoured books on folk literature of Western Odisha, Soura and Paharia tribes.