NEW DELHI: Assamese will now be the mandatory official language for all government notifications, orders, acts, and related work across Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on Tuesday.
The directive, effective from this Bohag (the Assamese New Year), aims to standardize administrative communication in the state’s most widely spoken language. “Beginning this Bohag, Assamese will be the compulsory official language for all government notifications, orders, acts, etc., across Assam,” Sarma wrote on social media platform X.
However, the state government has made regional provisions for districts with significant linguistic minorities. In the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) and Barak Valley, Bodo and Bengali respectively will continue to be used for official communication.
English will remain the medium for communication with the central government, other state governments, and central government offices. For legal and regulatory interpretation, the English version of any rule, regulation, act, office order, or court judgment will take precedence, the official notification stated.
According to the 2011 Census, Assamese is spoken by around 15.1 million people—approximately 48.38% of Assam’s population. Bengali, with about 9.02 million speakers (29.9%), is the second most spoken language, followed by Bodo, spoken by 1.48 million people or 4.5% of the population.
Assam’s linguistic policy reflects its cultural and ethnic diversity. Last year, on October 3, the Union Cabinet approved the conferring of classical language status to Assamese, Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, and Bengali. Subsequently, on October 8, the state cabinet passed a resolution to celebrate the recognition and thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “this significant gesture toward Assam’s cultural and linguistic heritage.”
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