UPSC Darpan

Polity & GovernanceGS224 September 2026

Tulu Becomes Second Additional Administrative Language in Coastal Karnataka; SC Presses Centre on Class 6 Relief

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The news

Bengaluru and New Delhi. The Indian Express today explains a decision taken last week and carded here on September 21: Karnataka’s D K Shivakumar-led Congress government, at a special Cabinet meeting in Mangaluru, accorded Tulu the status of “second additional administrative language” in the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. Government offices in the two districts can now use Tulu for official communication alongside Kannada, and the Cabinet has provided ₹82 lakh every year for translation, training and related activities. New in today’s report: Tulu is classified with Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam as one of the five Dravidian languages; it is spoken mainly in the two districts and in parts of northern Kerala, has about 1.8 to 2 million native speakers despite migration to Mumbai and Bengaluru, and carries traditions such as Yakshagana and Bhoota Kola. It once had its own script but is now largely written in Kannada script. Speakers argue that Tulu was denied the status given to regional languages such as Konkani or Kodava, and that, unlike other Dravidian languages, it did not get a linguistic State in the 1956 reorganisation. The obstacles are practical: few people know the Tulu script, the language is not taught in schools and colleges, and only a few signs in the region are in Tulu. The report also reads the move politically: coastal Karnataka is a BJP bastion, and the Mangaluru meeting is seen as an appeal to voters’ cultural heritage. In New Delhi, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asked the Supreme Court for more time for the Union government to decide on a suggestion to spare the current batch of Class 6 students from the three-language policy, under which school students must learn three languages. Justice Joymalya Bagchi, on a three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, replied: “Take your time, but see that the Class 6 students get some relief. We did not make this suggestion on a point of legality, but after considering the comfort and convenience of Class 6 students.” At the previous hearing, the Court had proposed that the scheme be mandatory for Class 6 only from January 1, 2027, continuing the language-in-schools thread carded on September 18. Syllabus: GS1 on diversity and regionalism, GS2 on federalism and the Constitution’s language provisions.

The chain in one line: The 1956 reorganisation divides the Tulu-speaking South Kanara belt between Mysore and Kerala, with no Tulu unit → Kannada becomes the State’s official language under the 1963 Act, and Tulu stays outside the Eighth Schedule → decades of demands from coastal legislators and speakers → the Cabinet meets in Mangaluru and grants Tulu administrative use in two districts with ₹82 lakh a year → success now depends on script, schooling and a legal basis, even as the Supreme Court asks the Centre to go easy on a three-language mandate for Class 6

Static syllabus linkage

  1. The Constitution lets States choose their official languages, and lets the President protect sizeable minorities. Article 343 makes Hindi in Devanagari script the official language of the Union, with English continued under the Official Languages Act, 1963. Article 345 allows a State legislature, by law, to adopt one or more languages in use in the State, or Hindi, for all or any of its official purposes, and Karnataka did so for Kannada through the Karnataka Official Language Act, 1963. Article 347 adds a protective route: on a demand, the President may direct that a language spoken by a substantial proportion of a State’s population be officially recognised throughout the State or any part of it. Several States already use second official languages statewide or regionally — Urdu in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Punjabi and Urdu in Delhi — so district-level status for Tulu follows an established pattern.
  2. Linguistic minorities have their own constitutional safeguards. Article 29(1) protects any section of citizens with a distinct language, script or culture in conserving it, and Article 30 lets linguistic as well as religious minorities establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Article 350 entitles every person to submit a representation for redress of a grievance in any language used in the Union or the State. Article 350A, inserted by the Seventh Amendment in 1956, directs States and local authorities to provide instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage for children of linguistic minority groups, and Article 350B provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities appointed by the President, whose reports are laid before Parliament. Article 351 directs the Union to promote the spread of Hindi, drawing on the languages of the Eighth Schedule.
  3. The Eighth Schedule has grown from 14 to 22 languages without fixed criteria, and Tulu is not in it. The Eighth Schedule began with 14 languages; Sindhi was added by the 21st Amendment (1967), Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali by the 71st (1992), and Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali by the 92nd (2003), making 22. The Union government has stated that attempts to evolve objective criteria for inclusion, through the Pahwa Committee (1996) and the Sitakant Mohapatra Committee (2003), did not bear fruit, so inclusion remains a political decision. Inclusion has practical value; for instance, candidates in the Civil Services Main Examination may write their answers in any Eighth Schedule language. Classical-language status is a separate recognition, now held by 11 languages from Tamil (2004) to Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali (2024); Tulu has neither status, although Karnataka has a Tulu Sahitya Academy.
  4. Linguistic States and the three-language formula were both compromises of the early Republic. After Potti Sriramulu’s death led to the creation of Andhra State in 1953, the States Reorganisation Commission of Fazl Ali, K M Panikkar and H N Kunzru led to the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which created 14 States and six Union Territories on broadly linguistic lines. The Tulu-speaking South Kanara district of Madras State went to Mysore, except Kasaragod, which went to Kerala; Mysore was renamed Karnataka in 1973. The three-language formula was recommended in modified form by the Education Commission (1964-66) chaired by D S Kothari and adopted in the National Policy on Education, 1968, while Tamil Nadu has followed a two-language policy since 1968. The National Education Policy 2020 keeps the formula with ‘greater flexibility’, requires at least two of the three languages to be native to India and promises that no language will be imposed on any State; education has been on the Concurrent List since the 42nd Amendment, 1976.

Why UPSC loves this

  1. Language sits at the junction of GS1 and GS2. GS1 covers the ‘salient features of Indian society, diversity of India’ and regionalism, and GS2 covers federalism and the constitutional scheme. Mains questions on linguistic States and regionalism can now use Tulu as a live example of recognition below the level of the State rather than through a new State.
  2. Prelims tests the articles and the Schedule precisely. Statement questions on Articles 343 to 351, the languages of the Eighth Schedule, the amendments that added them and the list of classical languages recur. Articles 347, 350A and 350B are easily confused with each other and deserve careful revision.
  3. Education and language federalism is a live Mains theme. The three-language formula has been debated in every national education policy since 1968, and the NEP 2020 version has prompted Centre-State friction. Questions on cooperative federalism in education, a Concurrent List subject, can cite the Supreme Court’s Class 6 hearing as an instance of courts mediating implementation rather than striking down policy.

Prelims nuggets

  • Article 345 empowers the legislature of a State to adopt, by law, one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi for its official purposes.
  • Under Article 347, the President may, on a demand being made, direct that a language spoken by a substantial proportion of a State’s population be officially recognised throughout the State or any part of it.
  • Article 350A, inserted by the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956, provides for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage for children belonging to linguistic minority groups.
  • Article 350B provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities appointed by the President.
  • Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were added to the Eighth Schedule by the 71st Amendment Act, 1992; Tulu is not included in the Eighth Schedule.
  • The three-language formula was recommended by the Education Commission (1964-66) chaired by D S Kothari and adopted in the National Policy on Education, 1968.
  • The States Reorganisation Commission, whose report led to the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, was chaired by Fazl Ali.

Analysis

  1. District-level status is the right scale for Tulu, but official use without literacy produces signboards, not service. Tulu is concentrated in two districts, so statewide status would be symbolic, whereas district status lets citizens deal with offices in the language they speak at home. The Indian Express identifies the binding constraint: few people know the Tulu script, and the language is not taught in schools or colleges. Unless applications, notices and replies can be written in the Kannada script that Tulu speakers already read, the status will change little in a taluk office. ₹82 lakh a year can pay for translators and a glossary for two districts, but not for a literacy programme. The test in two years will be whether a farmer can submit an application in Tulu and receive the reply in it.
  2. The legal form of the decision matters more than the ceremony in Mangaluru. Article 345 speaks of a State legislature adopting languages ‘by law’, and Kannada’s status rests on the Karnataka Official Language Act, 1963. The report describes a Cabinet decision and an ‘administrative’ status; it does not say whether the 1963 Act will be amended. An executive order can permit the use of Tulu in office communication, but a statutory basis would make the status durable across governments and enforceable by citizens, as Delhi’s second official languages are under an Act of its legislature. This is the question to watch, especially because the region votes differently from the party that took the decision, and a future government could quietly let an executive order lapse.
  3. Recognition is also electoral arithmetic, and that does not make it illegitimate. The Indian Express reads the Mangaluru meeting as the Congress’s attempt to reach voters in a BJP bastion through cultural heritage, after efforts to consolidate castes had failed. Democratic politics is supposed to respond to identity claims, and a demand raised in the legislature for years by coastal members is not made less just by being met before an election. The risks lie elsewhere: other coastal communities, such as Konkani, Beary and Kodava speakers, may seek similar status, and Kannada organisations may fear a dilution of the State language. Because Tulu is written in Kannada script and the status is additional rather than substitutive, the risk of a language conflict is low and the benefit of recognising a living language is real.
  4. In the Class 6 hearing, the Court chose fairness over legality, and was right to. Justice Bagchi was explicit that the suggestion to spare the current Class 6 batch was made not ‘on a point of legality’ but for the children’s ‘comfort and convenience’. That is the principle of transitional fairness: a new requirement should apply to cohorts who can prepare for it, not to children already midway through a school year. The counter-argument is separation of powers — curriculum is policy, and courts should not manage timetables. But the Court has only proposed a start date of January 1, 2027 and left the decision to the Union, which is restraint, not overreach. The government’s request for more time is reasonable only if relief actually reaches these students this academic year.
  5. Both stories test the same bargain: language policy works when it is made close to the speaker. The NEP 2020 promises that no language will be imposed on any State and that the three languages will be the choice of States, regions and students. Tulu’s recognition shows the demand for such choice below the level of the State; the Class 6 dispute shows the cost when a requirement arrives quickly from above. The three-language formula has been implemented unevenly since 1968 precisely because it asked States to teach languages their students saw little use for. India’s linguistic settlement since 1956 has survived by devolving these choices, and both the Karnataka Cabinet and the Supreme Court are, in different ways, applying that lesson.

Possible Mains question

“India’s constitutional language policy balances unity with the recognition of diversity.” In the light of Karnataka’s grant of official status to Tulu in two coastal districts and the debate over the three-language formula in schools, examine the constitutional provisions on language and how well they have worked. (15 marks, 250 words)

Model approach

  1. Introduction. Open with the Karnataka Cabinet’s Mangaluru decision making Tulu a second additional administrative language in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, and the Supreme Court’s Class 6 hearing on the three-language policy.
  2. Body — the constitutional scheme. Set out Articles 343 to 351 with emphasis on Articles 345 and 347, the minority safeguards in Articles 29, 30, 350A and 350B, and the Eighth Schedule with its amendments and the absence of fixed criteria.
  3. Body — how it has worked. Credit linguistic reorganisation in 1956 and second official languages in several States with defusing conflict; use Tulu’s case — no State, no Eighth Schedule place, a script few can read — to show gaps; note the legal-form question under Article 345.
  4. Body — language in schools. Trace the three-language formula from the Kothari Commission and the NPE 1968 to the NEP 2020; mention Tamil Nadu’s two-language policy, education on the Concurrent List, and the Court’s transitional-fairness approach to Class 6.
  5. Conclusion. Conclude that India’s language settlement works best through choice and devolution, and that recognition must be backed by law, script literacy and schooling to become real.

Administrator's brainstorm

You are the Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada. How would you make Tulu’s new status real in your offices?

I would start at the citizen interface: help desks, application forms, public notices and grievance counters where Tulu can be used, written in the Kannada script that speakers already read. I would use part of the ₹82 lakh to prepare a standard glossary of administrative terms with the Tulu Sahitya Academy and to train frontline staff, and I would place Tulu-speaking translators in district and taluk offices. I would track how many applications and replies are in Tulu each month. Official status that never reaches a village accountant’s desk is only a press release.

As a State Education Secretary, you learn that Class 6 students must suddenly study a third language in the middle of a year. What do you do?

I would first protect the current cohort by letting it continue under the earlier scheme or by making the third language non-examined this year, while teachers and materials are arranged. I would map teacher availability school by school, because a third language without teachers is only a paper requirement. I would communicate a clear timeline to parents and schools and begin the mandate with a cohort that can plan for it, as the Supreme Court has suggested. Where possible I would offer real choice, including regional and minority languages, in keeping with the NEP’s promise that no language will be imposed.

An interview board asks: should Tulu be included in the Eighth Schedule?

Tulu has a large speaker base, a rich oral and performance tradition and a historic script of its own, which together make a strong case, and inclusion would bring recognition and practical benefits such as use in national examinations. The difficulty is that there are no fixed criteria and many languages have pending claims, so each inclusion invites others. A principled approach would define transparent criteria — number of speakers, literary tradition, use in education — and apply them to every claimant. On any reasonable criteria, Tulu would be a strong candidate.