The new Administrator’s divisive actions, ever since he took office, have been seen as a threat to the cultural identity and heritage of Lakshadweep, with the latest move triggering protests in Minicoy over the removal of Mahal and Arabic from the school curriculum.
Praful Khoda Patel, a former Gujarat MLA and a close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, has introduced a series of decisions since his appointment as Administrator in December 2020 that have left the islanders in a state of uncertainty and distress.
The latest directive, issued by the Education Department on May 14 under the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2023, has provoked strong opposition, with residents viewing it as an attempt to dilute their linguistic and religious heritage.
Minicoy, the southernmost island in the Lakshadweep archipelago, is the only one where Mahal, a dialect of Dhivehi spoken in the Maldives, is the mother tongue, while Arabic is essential to the islanders’ religious instruction.
According to the order, both Malayalam and English medium schools in Minicoy will now offer Malayalam and English as the first and second languages, with Hindi replacing Mahal and Arabic as the third language. This abrupt shift, which was introduced after schools had closed for vacation on March 29, breaks away from long-standing local educational traditions.
Although the administration claims that the changes reflect the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which promotes multilingual exposure and cognitive development, residents argue that the removal of Mahal and Arabic dismisses their unique linguistic and cultural context.
Teachers have submitted applications urging the reinstatement of Mahal and pointed out the outdated nature of the current Mahal textbooks, which have not been updated since 1968, according to The News Minute.
There are concerns that if these applications are rejected, teachers specialising in Mahal could be transferred and the language erased from Minicoy’s school system altogether. This move is seen as part of a broader pattern of administrative overreach under Patel, whose tenure has been marked by restrictions on food, fishing bans, eviction orders, and land acquisition claims.
The imposition of the Goonda Act despite low crime rates, promotion of alcohol in the Muslim-majority territory, and road-widening projects that displaced residents have only intensified tensions, feeding into the #SaveLakshadweep movement that continues to resist what locals describe as authoritarian governance.