Bhojpuri, is a most widely spoken language in India after Hindi. It is spoken by an estimated seventeen crore people in western part of Bihar,North-western part of Jharkhand,Purvanchal region of U.P. and adjoining parts of Nepal Terrai. Some of the important political personalities and legendary freedom fighters from Bhojpuri regions happen to be Veer Kunwar Singh,Swami Shajanand Saraswati,Dr.Rajendra Prasad,Loknayak Jayprakash Narayan,Babu Jagjivan Ram, Chandra Sekhar,Current Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar etc.
Outside India, it is spoken by an estimated eight crore people in twelve countries viz. Nepal, Mauritious,Fiji,Surinam, Guyana, Uganda, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,Brazil etc. across the five continents. In fact, some of the Heads of state of these countries like Sir Anerood Jugnauth, current President of Mauritious,Dr. Navin Ramgoolam,current Prime Minister of Mauritious and Dr. Rambaran Yadav,current President of Nepal happen to be Bhojpuri speaking only. Earlier, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who held the office of Prime-minister of Mauritious for fourteen years also happened to be a Bhojpuri speaking only.
Bhojpuri has a rich History and literature too. It has a history, which dates back to seventh century.
The Bhojpuri literature has always remained contemporary. It was more of a body of folklore with folk music and poems. Literature in the written form started in the early 20th century. Bhikhari Thakur, Known as Shakespear of Bhojpuri contributed a lot to Bhojpuri language in terms of writing dramas, songs etc. in Bhojpuri. His literary creations including Dramas (Bidesiya, Beti-Bechawa, Bidhawa Bilaap etc.) and songs are praised and are sung even today. Dr. Krishnadev Upadhyay and Dr. H. S. Upadhyaya, who wrote the book Relationships of Hindu family as depicted in Bhojpuri folksongs (1996),together, have cataloged thousands of Bhojpuri folksongs, riddles and proverbs from the Purvanchal U.P, Bihar, Jharkhand etc. A recent publication (2009) 'Bhojpuri-Lok Sahitya: Lok Geeton Ki Samajik Sanskritik Sandarbh Evam Prishthbhumi" (Bhojpuri Folk Literature: Social and Cultural Landscape of Folk Songs) by Dr. Dharmveer Singh contains an exhaustive research on the historical and social background of the origin and temporal development of this language in great detail. Prominent Hindi laureates such as Bhartendu Harishchandra,Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, Munshi Premchand etc. were greatly influenced by the tone and style of Bhojpuri in their native regions.
Bhojpuri Film industry , since its first release “Ganga maiyaa Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo” in 1962 followed by few other films like “Bideshiya”,”Ganga”,”Balam Pardeshiya”,”Chutki Bhar Senur”,”Dulha Ganga Par ke”,”Bidaai”,”Sasura bada Paisewala”,”Kasam Dharti maiyaa ki” etc. has come a long way.During last fifteen years, encouraged by huge commercial success of Bhojpuri films,not only it has witnessed very high dose of production but it has attracted some of the very popular actors like Amitabh Bachchan,Shatrughan Sinha,Mithun Chakravorty etc. of Hindi cinema to act in Bhojpuri films.Also, Popular Hindi Singers like Udit Narayan,Alka Yagnik,Anuradha Paudwal etc. have sung songs in Bhojpuri films.Bhojpuri films have started receiving international acclaims as well.Recently, Sidhharth Sinha's 21-minute Bhojpuri flick Udhedh Bun had been selected for world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. For last five years, Bhojpuri film award functions are being organized at very grand scale and great fanfare like Hindi Film award functions.
In the Electronic and Print Media also,Bhojpuri has carved a niche for itself.Popularity of Bhojpuri TV channels such as Mahua TV,Hamaar TV are case in Point. Today they are so popular that no DTH Provider can afford to exclude these popular channels from their pack. On the Print Media front also, Bhojpuri Magazines have made significant progress. In Bhojpuri many magazines and papers are published from U P, Bihar West Bengal & Assam. “The Sunday Indian,Bhojpuri” is regular National News Magazine in Bhojpuri published by Planman Media,.”Sanesh” is a first quarterly magazine from Guwahati in North East etc.
Bhojpuri is also taught as regular course at Graduate/ post graduate level in universities like Calcutta university,Patna University,Veer kunwar Singh University,Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University,Nalanda Open University,IGNOU etc.In fact,in a few select universities, students are doing Phd also in Bhojpuri.
Inspite of such a huge popularity of Bhojpuri with masses at national and international level,Bhojpuri has been meted out step motherly treatment by political class cutting across party lines during last six decades. At present, 22 languages have been included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Of these, 14 languages were initially included in the Constitution. Sindhi language was included in 1967. Thereafter, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were included in 1992. Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali languages were added in 2004.Without any bias to any other language, we can say that most of the languages included in Eighth schedule since 1967, have much lower number of people speaking them in comparison to Bhojpuri. Despite all the factors going in favour of Bhojpuri for inclusion in Eighth schedule of constitution, successive governments have discriminated against it. After huge uproar in the Parliament during the last decade, a committee under Sitakant Mohapatra was set up to evolve the criterion for including Bhojpuri in Eighth schedule and after that whenever the issue is raised for including Bhojpuri in Eighth schedule, Govt. takes excuse of this committee looking into the issue. One may note that prior to 2004, no such criterion were followed for including the languages in Eighth schedule. Prior to 2004, other languages were included on the basis of popular demand only; however despite huge popular demand for inclusion of Bhojpuri,Govt. is yet to accede to it.
Given the above background, there is a need of concerted effort by all Bhojpuri speaking people, members of parliament from Bhojpuri speaking regions, cutting across their party lines, all the stake holders in the Bhojpuri film industry/Bhojpuri Media and thousands of organizations working in their own way for Poorvanchalis and Bhojpuri. They all should join hands together and use their combined might to see to it that long standing demand for inclusion of Bhojpuri in Eighth schedule of constitution is accepted without any further delay during the coming monsoon session of parliament. The demand is long overdue and it shouldn’t be allowed to be procrastinated any further.
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