I will talk of Orissa, where we have some of the Andhra people and some Bengalee people, for whom I think free primary education up to a certain stage should be provided by the State. The same demand I make from the provinces of Madras, Bengal and the Central Provinces, where education in the mother tongue of the Oriyas has been denied. My friend, Premier Shukla, is looking at me. It is not his Ministry’s fault. It is a tradition that has grown. No one bothers about giving free primary education in the mother tongue of any race that has a language and a script of its own. In Bengal in the Midnapore district, in the 1881 census, five lakhs of Oriyas existed. In the last census only a few thousands and perhaps in the coming census they will be completely wiped out. But yet primary education gives individuals the chance to be in communion with their God and in communion with the textbooks of their religion. The Oriya children of Midnapore have at present to study Bengali. They have changed their names into Bengali names. So is the case in Madras in the Vizagapatam district where very large numbers of Oriyas live and it was their misfortune that the area could not become part of Orissa Province in 1936. But I do want in bi-lingual areas where there is a large population of another race, the Provincial Ministry and the Government concerned should not deny those children their right of knowledge in their own mother tongue so that when they become literate they may have been able to undertake some study of their religious texts. It is not the policy of this House or the contemplation of this Constitution that every province as it is constituted now should make all the people of one language. That is a problem on which I have had discussions in private. I understand that the Drafting Committee will take this up in article 23(1). So that is the reason why I did not move my amendment No. 970 which asked for free and compulsory primary education for all children in their respective mother tongue. It is a very primary and essential problem that we should not denationalise those people who have a mother tongue of their own and compel them to learn the mother tongue of someone else, however suitable it may be.
