Chastened government gives impetus to learn Gondi

The battle with the Maoists, described as the gravest threat to India’s internal security, might have taken a different turn had the government paid attention to one of India’s oldest tribal languages, Gondi, from the beginning.

The lingua franca of the Red brigade dominating the forests in central India, Gondi does not have a standard script or dictionary. Though it is spoken by more than one crore tribal population in six states, the government did little to learn the language the Maoists spoke.

A motley group of academicians, activists, villagers, writers, teachers and singers have now come together to piece together a standard Gondi language taking inputs from its three better known types and also to develop an Unicode compatible font to help allow posting on internet sites like Wikipaedia.

Many a times, lack of Gondi knowledge has rendered security forces vulnerable. Learning the lesson the hard way, the Chhattisgarh police have included it as a part of its police training syllabus.

“In our constabulary, we have Gondi speaking boys. But we have included it in our police training syllabus since 2013 because Gondi knowledge is important for our operations,” R K Vij, additional director general of police, Chhattisgarh, who is in charge of the Maoist operation told Deccan Herald from Raipur.

“While the police has Gondi speaking constables or tribals working as Special Police Officers in their ranks, it is the CRPF, which is more vulnerable as they don’t have the locals,” said Lalsu Nogoti, a Gadchiroli-based activist, who studied law in Fergusson College, Pune and was guided by social activist Baba Amte.

In the last five years, the paramilitary force suffered heavy casualties in the hands of the Maoists including the chilling April 2010 ambush in which 75 CRPF men died.

“The intelligence failed due to lack of Gondi knowledge. There are several Maoist publications in Gondi, which the security officials are unable to read.

 They cannot talk to the villagers in their language like the rebels can,” said award-winning journalist Shubranshu Choudhary, who trailed the Maoists for several years and who is currently running an internet-based radio news service in Gondi language.

Gondi is a native language spoken by several tribal communities spread across the adjacent areas of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, which were once part of the Dandakaranya.

“Many Gonds still speak Gondi but reading it in their script is rare,” said Uma Maheshwar Rao, a professor of linguistics at the University of Hyderabad. It is usually written in Devanagari, Telugu and Oriya scripts.

“There are three types of Gondi scripts but not a standard one and no dictionary,” said K M Metri, a professor at Kannada Vishwavidyalaya at Hampi.

The NGO-driven effort to come up with a standard Gondi text, has received support from the Union Ministry of Culture and Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, Amarkantak.