Minority panels seek review of language proficiency rule

Shillong, Oct 11: The Regional Council Demand Committee (RCDC) along with Meghalaya Indigenous Minority Tribals’ Forum (MIMTF) in its meeting held recently discussed the newly adopted and recently implemented the so-called Language Proficiency Rule according to which all the candidates irrespective of caste and community must have Garo or Khasi subjects and will have to appear for written test in Garo or Khasi of 100 marks, pass marks being 40, for any government  job under District Selection Committee.

The meeting expressed concern over the new rule which has been introduced by the state government ‘abruptly and unilaterally without giving any chance to the people to give their views/ opinion over the same.

In a statement, the chairman of RCDC and former minister KC Boro, said that although they are not against the concept of the rule in question, but they object to is the implementation of the same at present. “Because, our children have never studied Garo or Khasi language and do not have knowledge about these languages and for which to appear for exam in Garo or Khasi language is never possible. This rule is nothing but an arbitrary imposition on our children deliberately which is dictatorial in nature. We feel, this is indirectly a tactful attempt of the government to deprive our children/our boys and girls of getting government jobs at the district level. This is unfortunate and is a great injustice to the backward minority tribals in particular and also to the non-tribals in general”.

Full text of statement below 

RCDC submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister on 25.5.26 requesting him to give 15 to 20 years time to our children to study and learn ‘Garo’ and ‘Khasi’ languages before implementation of the rule so that our children can make themselves fit to appear for exam(s) for such jobs in Garo or Khasi language. At the same time, we also requested the Chief Minister for his appointment to meet him to discuss the matter across the table and also to discuss our demand for creation of an Autonomous Regional Council for the Minority Tribals in Garo Hills for which I wrote a letter to the Chief Minister on 06.7.26. But, this is really unfortunate that, not to speak of consideration of our request, he has not even given us appointment to meet him till today.

As a Chief Minister of the State it is his solemn duty and responsibility to take care of all the people of the State irrespective of caste, creed and religion. Whether he considers and solves the problems or not, but he has to listen mandatorily to every community if the matter(s) pertain to the community interest. But the Chief Minister has not done so. This only indicates, as we feel, the utter neglect of the Chief Minister to us/to our people. And, which is, in other word, discrimination to the Minority Tribals of the State.

Anyway, we hope, within 30 days from today the Chief Minister will consider our above mentioned request and will take necessary action in the matter accordingly as indicated above, failing which we will have no way than to go to the court of law seeking justice in the matter.

At last, in this regard, I will simply say that, — “Nothing is permanent in this earth; Everything is temporary.” And so, being helpless we will simply wait for such time to come when we could cheer that our request(s), our demand(s) is/are considered and fulfilled by someone if not by him. Anyway, we are grateful to the honourable Governor of Meghalaya (in picture) who gave us chance to meet him and gave ample time to discuss the matter including our demand for Regional Council and promised us to look into the matter constitutionally and sympathetically.

Dr. KC Boro, Former Minister of Meghalaya & Chairman, RCDC