President of Asam Sahitya Sabha Parmananda Rajbongshi while expressing concern at the depleting population of people speaking Assamese appealed to all indigenous communities to join hands to save Assamese from extinction.
Addressing a brainstorming session at the Radha Kanta Handique Bhawan in Jorhat on Monday, Rajbongshi criticized the Dibrugarh and Gauhati Universities for not doing enough to promote the Assamese language in their curriculum or publishing textbooks of the degree level.
He condemned the Universities for not teaching the subjects in Assamese language.
Rajbongshi further said that no private university in Assam which did not promote Assamese would not be allowed to operate in the State as these had made education their business.
Rajbongshi said that on July 20 and 21, the Sabha would take some hard decisions which could save the Assamese language.
Rajbongshi said that while the government was amenable to the idea of conducting examinations in the mother tongue so that all the languages spoken here were preserved and also in Assamese, this was not being done.
He suggested that one paper of 50 marks should be in the mother tongue of the indigenous community, the other paper of 50 marks should be in Assamese language.
Rajbongshi said that no one who did not know Assamese should be appointed in jobs.
As regards Unicode, Rajbongshi said that the Sabha would do all it could but the government and all the MLAs and MPs of the State should unite day fight for inclusion of Assamese as a separate language so that it did not remain joined with Bengali.
The meeting also discussed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 proposed by the Centre and its repercussions in Assam.
The session was attended by intellectuals and members and heads of different units of the Sabha including the Sivasagar district branch, Majuli district branch, former presidents and secretaries of Asam Sahitya Sabha and research scholars.