In January 2024, the Government of India, under the New Education Policy 2020, has decided to include which language as one of the nine classical languages of India?

Farsi

In January 2024, the Government of India, under the New Education Policy, has decided to include Farsi (Persian) as one of the nine classical languages of India. Before Farsi’s inclusion, India recognized six languages as classical: Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014). Later on Pali and Prakrit languages were also added to this list.

All the Classical Languages are listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

The criteria for declaring a language as ‘Classical’ include a recorded history of 1500-2000 years, a valuable heritage of ancient literature, an original literary tradition, and distinctness from modern forms or offshoots​​​.