Mumbai: The Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government Monday reiterated its Marathi language policy that mandates all its employees across departments to only speak in Marathi. The state government also made it mandatory for all its department offices to put up a board at a visible location that directs everyone to converse in Marathi.
The state Marathi language department issued a government resolution giving directions to implement the Marathi language policy Monday.
The resolution further says, if any official is found to be violating the guidelines of conversing in Marathi in government offices, a complaint can be filed against him with the head of the department, who will then conduct an inquiry into the complaint and take disciplinary action, if necessary.
“If the complainant is not satisfied with the inquiry conducted and action taken by the department head, the complainant can appeal before the state legislature’s Marathi language committee,” the government resolution reads.
The Maharashtra government finalised a Marathi language policy on 14 March, 2024, when the previous Mahayuti government under Eknath Shinde was in charge. The Mahayuti comprises the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Shinde-led Shiv Sena and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). As per the government, the objective of the policy is to establish the Marathi language as a language of knowledge and business.
“To conserve, preserve, spread and develop the Marathi language, it is important to emphasise on Marathi in not just education, but day-to-day business too,” Monday’s government resolution said.
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All business in Marathi
According to the government resolution, all purchase orders, tenders and advertisements placed in the media need to be in the Devnagari script.
Moreover, the names of all government entities should be in Marathi, and in places where the entities need to be referred to in English, the names should not be translated, but the Marathi names themselves should be written in the Roman script.
It says, the name and designation boards at all Central government offices in Maharashtra should also be in Marathi.
Further, the government resolution says, these directions for its offices in the Marathi language policy have to be followed right till the district level offices.
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All state government employees are in any case Maharashtrians, so it is only a question of All India Service officers assigned to the state cadre who have to learn. Which they start doing at the Academy in Mussoorie. What should be kept in mind is the cosmopolitan character of Bombay, the large volumes of FDI the state is seeking, the presence of a business community that includes Gujaratis and others. States should not turn insular, parochial.