DU teachers want Maithili taught as a subject at varsity

NEWDELHI: After the Delhi government introduced Maithili in its schools, demand for the language as a subject in the Delhi University’s (DU) department of modern Indian languages (MIL) was raised by a section of the university’s teachers on Saturday. The department currently offers various courses in 11 MILS that include Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu.

In a letter addressed to the DU vice-chancellor Yogesh Tyagi, former academic council (AC) member and associate professor at Satyawati College Rajiv Kumar Verma said, “During the academic session this year, the University of Delhi also included Maithili Core/ Maithili Elective under the language subjects list along with other languages. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has also introduced Maithili as an optional subject and many candidates have been successful with Maithili as a paper. In July 2019, the Delhi Government announced that Maithili will be taught as an optional language in Delhi schools from Class 8 to Class 12. Kindly initiate the process of the introduction of Maithili as a subject in the DU’S Department of MIL.”

Verma said that his demand was backed by other teachers as well. “There are so many Maithili-speaking students at the university. We keep on receiving requests from students to be able to opt for the language as a subject. Therefore, the language should be introduced in the university,” he said.

The Delhi government had, in July, announced their proposal to introduce the language in its schools to help Maithili-speaking people in Delhi study their mother tongue as a subject.

Rajesh Jha, a member of the university’s executive council, said that if introduced, many students would take an interest in opting for the language. “Maithili is spoken in areas of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. This year, around 50,000 students had applied from UP and 15,120 from Bihar for admission in DU,” he said.

Despite several attempts, Tyagi could not be reached for comment.

DU Students’ Union (DUSU) president Akshit Dahiya said that the inclusion of Maithili as a subject would be helpful for many Purvanchali students joining the university.

“It’s very encouraging to have one’s spoken language as a subject in the university. They can learn a lot of literature available in the language—that holds true not just for Maithili, but for other regional languages as well,” he said.