BHUBANESWAR: A delegation of tribal leaders led by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh over inclusion of ‘Ho’ dialect in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
Submitting a memorandum to the Home Minister, Pradhan said the inclusion of the tribal dialect in the 8th Schedule is a long pending demand of the Ho speaking people from different states. More than thousand tribal representatives from Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand had organised a rally in the national capital recently to press for their demand.
The Union Home Minister assured the delegation to look into the matter and taken necessary action.
In August, the State Government had also proposed for inclusion of three major tribal languages - Ho, Mundari and Bhumij - in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
Writing to the Union Home Minister, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said his Government has initiated several steps for giving recognition to the tribal languages. There are some tribal languages in the State which highly deserve to be included in the Schedule, he added.
Ho language, which is written in Warang Chiti script, is the mother tongue of nearly 10 lakh tribal people living in Odisha and Jharkhand. After Santali, which has already been included, Ho is the second most widely spoken tribal language in the State.
Mundari is another important language spoken by more than six lakh people belonging to the Munda tribes. Many scholarly works have been published in the language and script.With a ST population of over 22.85 per cent, Odisha is home to 62 tribal communities, including 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG).