Editor,
The recent Cabinet decision to make proficiency in a local dialect, along with APST and PRC requirements, mandatory for government job applications in Arunachal Pradesh has opened an important discussion about the future of our indigenous languages. Protecting local languages is necessary, but the policy must also recognise the complex multilingual reality of Arunachal Pradesh.
Arunachal is home to many tribes, communities and languages. In many families, particularly those involving inter-district or inter-community marriages, there is no single indigenous language that both parents can comfortably speak. As a result, parents often choose Hindi or English as the common language at home. This becomes even more common among families where parents are in transferable government or defence services and children spend their formative years outside Arunachal.
Child language development needs to be considered seriously in this context. Children acquire languages most naturally when they are regularly exposed to them during their early years. A child who grows up hearing a local language from parents, grandparents and neighbours may naturally acquire it. But a child who has spent those formative years speaking Hindi or English cannot simply be expected to become proficient in an indigenous language overnight.
Therefore, language preservation must begin much earlier than the recruitment stage.
If we genuinely want every Arunachali child to know an indigenous language, local languages should gradually become part of the education system. Children could be exposed to their community languages through stories, folk traditions, conversations and age-appropriate lessons from the early years. Teachers should be trained, and textbooks and other learning resources should be developed to support language learning.
There should also be a reasonable transition period before language proficiency becomes a mandatory eligibility requirement for government employment. Otherwise, the policy may disproportionately affect those Arunachali children who have lost connection with their ancestral language because of circumstances beyond their control.
Most importantly, we should not create a situation where an Arunachali child is considered less Arunachali simply because he or she cannot speak a particular dialect.
Language is an important part of identity, but identity is also shaped by culture, ancestry, community, traditions, family and belonging. A person who grew up outside Arunachal because their parents served the country, or a child born into an inter-district or multilingual family, should not be treated as culturally disconnected merely because Hindi or English became their primary language.
The objective should therefore be language revival, not language exclusion.
A balanced policy can protect indigenous languages while recognising Arunachal's multilingual reality. Local-language proficiency could initially be encouraged or given appropriate weight in recruitment, while simultaneously building a strong language education system. After sufficient preparation, teacher training and widespread exposure, a more stringent requirement could be considered.
We should absolutely save our languages before they disappear. But preservation cannot be achieved by simply placing the burden on a generation that was never given the opportunity to learn them.
If we want our children to speak our languages tomorrow, we must give them the opportunity to learn those languages today.
Arunachal needs a language policy that protects its indigenous identity without creating barriers for its own children. The goal should not be to punish those who lost their language; the goal should be to ensure that the next generation does not lose it.
A concerned educator