Shillong, July 30: Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai has informed that the Government of India is in knowledge of demands to include the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. However, he remained non-committal on the status or steps towards fulfilling the demand.

It is not just Khasi language, but demands have come in for other languages to be included in Eighth Schedule as well, and the Government of India is aware of the sentiments attached with such requests.

“Such requests have to be considered keeping in mind these sentiments, and the other relevant considerations,” Rai said.

He was replying to a query raised by Congress MP from Shillong, Vincent H. Pala on steps taken by the government to include the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule, in the Lok Sabha on July 27.

Rai said there have been demands from time to time for inclusion of Khasi in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution and that the central government had received a proposal in this regard.

He however said that as the evolution of dialects and languages is a dynamic process, influenced by socio-cultural, economic and political developments, it is difficult to fix any criteria for languages, whether to distinguish them from dialects, or for their inclusion in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution.

The earlier attempts, through the Pahwa (1996) and Sitakant Mohapatra (2003) Committees, to evolve such fixed criteria have been inconclusive, Rai added.