High hopes for Ho

Lakhs of tribals belonging to the Ho community of Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal have reason to cheer they are hopeful that their language will get official recognition soon. The state government sent a recommendation to the Centre to include the Ho language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. 

Manoranjan Tiria, a member of a committee formed by the Tribal Advisory Council (TAC) said the state took up the initiative after the TAC urged it to do so. "We hope the Centre will declare Ho an official language soon. After the declaration, Ho will be the second official tribal language in the state," said Tiria. 

Sources said on May 13, in a meeting held on the premises of the state assembly, the TAC committeerequested to the government to take up the issue with the Centre. The committee pointed out that Ho, both the community and the language, meets all the criteria to merit inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. After the state government was convinced, it sent a recommendation to the Centre to declare Ho an official language, sources said. 

According to the sources, the linguistic movement for the recognition of'Ho started way back in1976. In 2003, the Jharkhand government had recommended the tribal languages Santhal, Mundari, Ho and Oram be included in the Eighth Schedule. Two of these languages, Santhali and Boda, got recognition in the same year, after several years of movement. 

Ho is a very old tribal language. In some areas, it is called by other names like Kol, Kolha and Munda. There are about 50 lakh tribals of this community living in the country, mostly in Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal. In Orissa and Jharkhand, state education in Ho at the primary level was introduced in 20 and 449 schools respectively and about 44,502 tribal students are pursuing their studies in the language. 

In the state, this community is found throughout the Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts. Besides these places, they are concentrated in Nilagiri area of Balasore district, Bonai in Sundergarh, Sukinda area in Jajpur, Kamakshyanagar and Gandia areas in Dhenkanal, Athagada and Chouduar areas in Cuttack, Chandaka in Khurdha, Kuchinda area in Sambalpur, Barkote in Deogarh and Pallahada in Angul. 

Besides education, Ho has also got its due recognition in the world of mass media. For the last few years, All India Radio (AIR) has been airing songs in Ho from the AIR centres in Keonjhar, Rourkela and Cuttack besides Baripada in Mayurbhanj district. Regular programs in Ho are broadcast from Chaibasa and Jamhshedpur AIR centres in Jharkhand. Similarly, from Ranchi AIR centre in Jharkhand, regional news bulletins are broadcast two days a week Friday and Sunday. 

In Orissa, a six-member committee, headed by Dr Akhila Bihari Otta, former collector of Balasore, was constituted by the decision of TAC. Other members of the committee are Kaira Singh Kalia, Dr Binod Kumar Naik, Dr Khageswar Mohapatra, Dr K K Mohanta, Dr Paramananda Patel, Manoranjan Tiria and Kala Charan Biguli. 

After a detailed study on the Ho language and community, this committee found that Ho meets all the required criteria to merit inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. TAC then recommended to the state government to ask the Centre to declare Ho as an official language and include it in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, said a committee member. 

For the development of this community, Ho needs to be declared an official language at the state as well as at the country level, according to TAC. Hence, TAC appealed to NGOs and other cultural organizations to join in the linguistic movement.