GANESH DEVY

Ganesh Narayan Devy Renowned literary critic and activist and founder director of the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Vadodara and Adivasi Academy at Tejgadh, Gujarat. He is also the Chairman of the People's Linguistic Survey of India

If democracy does not care for diversity, then it ceases to be a democracy. The heart of democracy is not in agreement, but in having space for debate, in having different views and different ways of looking at the world. This is not a situation unique only to India; rather it is prevalent all over the world. Papua New Guinea had a larger number of languages than India has. In 1961, it had claimed 1,100 languages; today it is not able to speak more than a few hundred languages.

As I write this article, it is nearly a year since eight African cheetahs from Namibia landed in India and were released into quarantine enclosures at Kuno National Park (748 sq km), Madhya Pradesh, on September 17, 2022. The introduction of African cheetahs was heralded as a major conservation initiative, which set global records. For instance, it was announced with much fanfare that this was the first intercontinental movement of large cats.