First time Santhali used in Parliament

Earlier the facility of the simultaneous interpretation of Parliament’s proceedings was available for 17 languages given under the Eight Schedule of our Constitution.

On 10 August 2018, Speaker of the lower house of the Parliament, Lok Sabha announced that the members of both the houses of the parliament can now speak in any of the 22 languages given under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, Dogri, Kashmiri, Konkani, Santhali, and Sindhi languages were also made available to the members of both the houses of the parliament.

On Friday, 6th December 2019, Santhali language made its debut in Parliament’s upper house, Rajya Sabha. Sarojini Hembram, Rajya Sabha member from Odisha spoke in Santhali language while raising a matter of urgent public importance during the Question hour or Zero Hour of the house.

Sarojini Hembram also demanded Bharat Ratna for Raghunath Murmu, who created the Ol Chiki script in 1925 for the Santhali language.