Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla Tuesday announced the extension of translation services to six new languages in Parliament including Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Urdu and Sanskrit.
Soon after the Question Hour concluded, he said he was happy to announce that six more languages — Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Sanskrit and Urdu — have been included in the list of languages in which simultaneous interpretation was available for members.
The Speaker said previously, the translation services were available in 10 languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, in addition to Hindi and English.
“Now, we have also included six more languages — Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Urdu, and Sanskrit. Along with this, for the additional 16 languages, as human resources become available, we are making efforts to provide simultaneous translations in those as well,” he said.
Birla said, “India’s parliamentary system is a democratic framework that provides translations in so many languages. When I discussed at the global level that we are making this effort in 22 languages in India, everyone on the international platforms praised it. ”
”Our effort is that, for the 22 languages that are officially recognised, we aim to include them in the future as well,” he pointed out.
DMK member Dayanidhi Maran objected to the Speaker’s announcement, and asked why was the public money being wasted on simultaneous translation in Sanskrit, which is spoken by only 70,000 people, according to census.
“It is not communicable in any of the states in India. Nobody is speaking that. The 2011 population survey said that only 73,000 people are supposed to be speaking. Why should the taxpayer’s money be wasted because of your RSS ideologies?” Maran questioned.
A visibly upset Birla said the simultaneous interpretation of House proceedings was not limited to Sanskrit alone but other recognised languages too. He pulled him up and asked which country he was living in.
“This is India, whose “Mool Bhasha” has been Sanskrit. That’s why we mentioned 22 languages, not just Sanskrit. Why do you have an issue with Sanskrit?” Birla asked.