Tulu Recognised in Karnataka, But Not in the Eighth Schedule: What’s the Difference?

Karnataka’s latest recognition gives Tulu an administrative role in two districts. But constitutional recognition is a different process - and that larger demand remains unresolved.

Tulu has crossed an important institutional milestone in Karnataka. On September 18, 2026, the Karnataka Cabinet decided to recognise Tulu as the state's second additional language for administrative purposes in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. The decision gives Tulu a formal place in district-level administration in the region where it has a strong historical and contemporary presence. But one important question remains:

If Karnataka has now recognised Tulu for administrative purposes, why is Tulu still not in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India?

Answer lies in a basic distinction that is often missed in public discussion:

State-level recognition and constitutional recognition are not the same thing.

Karnataka's decision is a decision of the state government concerning the use of Tulu in specified areas of state administration. Eighth Schedule, however, is part of the Constitution of India. Adding a language to it requires action at the Union constitutional level. That is why the September 2026 Karnataka decision does not, by itself, put Tulu into the Eighth Schedule.

What exactly has Karnataka recognised?

Karnataka Cabinet has decided to recognise Tulu as the state's second additional administrative language in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi. Decision is therefore geographically specific and administrative in nature.

According to reports on the Cabinet decision, the district administrations of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi will implement the measure, including arrangements relating to translation, training and other administrative requirements. This is significant because it gives Tulu an institutional role in government administration within the two districts.

But it does not amend the Constitution. That distinction is crucial.

What is the Eighth Schedule?

Eighth Schedule is a part of the Constitution of India. It currently contains 22 languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Maithili, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Tulu is not among them.

Schedule is linked constitutionally to Articles 344(1) and 351. This means that inclusion in the Eighth Schedule is fundamentally different from a state government deciding to provide administrative recognition to a language. A state cabinet decision can operate within the state's administrative and legislative framework.

Changing the Eighth Schedule involves the Constitution of India and therefore falls within the national constitutional and parliamentary framework.

Who decides whether Tulu enters the Eighth Schedule?

This is where the distinction becomes especially important. Karnataka government can support, recommend and advocate for Tulu's inclusion. But Karnataka cannot itself add Tulu to the Eighth Schedule.

Eighth Schedule is part of the Constitution, and constitutional amendments are governed by Article 368. In practical terms, therefore, the demand for Tulu's inclusion has to move beyond the Karnataka Cabinet and into the Union government's and Parliament's constitutional process.

The history of parliamentary questions on Tulu demonstrates this distinction. In a Rajya Sabha answer in 2014, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said Karnataka had sent proposals for the inclusion of Tulu and Kodava in the Eighth Schedule. It also stated that demands for inclusion of 38 languages, including Tulu and Kodava, were pending and that criteria for considering such languages were being evolved.

So the issue has never simply been whether Karnataka supports Tulu. Larger question has been how the Union government should determine which additional languages should be added to the Constitution.

Demand is much older than the 2026 Cabinet decision

Tulu's constitutional recognition campaign did not begin with the latest Karnataka Cabinet decision. Demand has developed over several decades through literary organisations, cultural bodies, public campaigns, political representations and parliamentary interventions. Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, established in 1994, subsequently became one of the institutional platforms through which demands for greater recognition of Tulu were pursued.

By 2013, the Academy and other organisations were publicly campaigning for inclusion of Tulu in the Eighth Schedule. Contemporary reporting recorded that several efforts had already been made since the Academy's establishment. Demand therefore has two overlapping tracks:

State recognition - recognition and use of Tulu within Karnataka's administrative system.

Constitutional recognition - inclusion of Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

Two demands are related, but they are legally different.

What happened in 2014?

A particularly important official record came in July 2014. In a Rajya Sabha written answer concerning the inclusion of Tulu and Kodava, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that Karnataka had sent proposals for their inclusion in the Eighth Schedule. At that time, the Union government said there were demands for 38 additional languages, including Tulu and Kodava.

Government also said that criteria for inclusion were being evolved in consultation with the concerned ministries and departments and that pending representations could be considered after objective criteria were evolved and approved.

This is important because it establishes that the Tulu demand was not merely a cultural campaign outside government channels. It had reached the Union government's formal consideration process.

What happened in 2016?

2016 Union government response provides perhaps the clearest snapshot of where the issue stood. On July 26, 2016, the Ministry of Home Affairs told the Lok Sabha that there were demands for inclusion of 38 additional languages, including Tulu and Rajasthani, in the Eighth Schedule.

Tulu appeared as one of those 38 languages. Government's explanation also revealed the central difficulty. It said that the evolution of dialects and languages is dynamic and influenced by socio-cultural, economic and political developments. Because of that, it was difficult to establish a fixed criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects or determining inclusion in the Eighth Schedule.

Two earlier attempts to establish such criteria had not produced a final framework: the Pahwa Committee, constituted in 1996; and the Sitakant Mohapatra Committee, constituted in 2003.

Mohapatra Committee submitted its report in 2004, but the government said the effort to evolve fixed criteria had not produced a final workable basis.

This is the key fact behind much of the continuing uncertainty.

Was Tulu actually on a government list?

Yes, but the terminology needs to be used carefully. In 2016, the Union government officially listed 38 languages for which demands for inclusion had been received.

Tulu was number 38 on that list. This does not mean that Tulu had already been approved for constitutional inclusion. It means that a demand for its inclusion had been formally recognised as part of the wider group of pending demands. That distinction is important for accurate reporting.

It would therefore be more precise to write:

Tulu has been among the languages for which demands for Eighth Schedule inclusion have been pending before the Union government.

Rather than:

Centre has approved Tulu for inclusion.

There is no basis in the official material cited here for saying that Tulu has been approved.

What did Parliament say in 2017?

The issue came up again in the Rajya Sabha in July 2017. During a discussion concerning the inclusion of Tulu and Kodava, the government stated that 38 languages were on the waiting list, with Tulu listed among them.

Government also referred to the Sitakant Mohapatra Committee and said its report on objective criteria remained under consideration. Around the same period, Karnataka itself moved to support Tulu's Eighth Schedule demand.

In August 2017, the Karnataka government decided to recommend to the Centre that Tulu be included in the Eighth Schedule.

This demonstrates another important point: Karnataka's support for constitutional recognition is not new. State has previously backed the demand at the national level.

Why hasn't the Eighth Schedule issue been settled?

Central obstacle has not simply been whether Tulu has cultural or literary importance. Union government's repeated position has been that there is no fixed constitutional criterion for deciding which additional languages should enter the Eighth Schedule.

In 2021, the Ministry of Home Affairs again told the Lok Sabha that demands for Tulu's inclusion existed but that it was difficult to establish fixed criteria because languages evolve dynamically. Government again referred to the inconclusive attempts of the Pahwa and Sitakant Mohapatra committees.

Same position was repeated in a 2023 parliamentary answer: there were demands for inclusion of several languages, including Tulu, but no fixed criteria for consideration had been established. And the Union government's position remained substantially the same in 2026 in responses concerning other languages: the earlier attempts to establish fixed criteria through the Pahwa and Sitakant Mohapatra committees remained inconclusive.

Therefore, the constitutional question surrounding Tulu remains open.

Does Eighth Schedule status make a language an “official language of India”?

This is another common misconception. No. Eighth Schedule should not simply be described as a list of India's “official languages”. Union's official-language framework is separately governed by Article 343 and the Official Languages Act, 1963.

Department of Official Language states that Hindi in Devanagari script is the official language of the Union under Article 343(1), while English may also be used for official purposes under the Official Languages Act. Eighth Schedule has a different constitutional role.

It provides recognition to the listed languages for specified constitutional purposes, including provisions connected with the development of languages and the work of the Official Language Commission.

Therefore: Eighth Schedule language ≠ automatically an official language of the Union. This distinction should be preserved in any report about Tulu.

Then what is the significance of Karnataka's 2026 decision?

September 18 decision nevertheless represents a substantial change at the state administrative level. For Tulu speakers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, the decision moves Tulu from a language with cultural and public demand for greater recognition toward a more formal administrative role in the two districts.

But it does not settle the constitutional demand.

In simple terms:

Issue	Status
Tulu's cultural and literary identity	Long-established
Tulu use in coastal Karnataka	Established
Karnataka administrative recognition	Approved in September 2026 for Dakshina Kannada and Udupi
Tulu in Eighth Schedule	Not included
Number of languages currently in Eighth Schedule	22
Tulu among demands for inclusion	Yes
Union government's fixed criteria for new inclusion	No fixed criteria established
Constitutional demand	Still unresolved

Distinction is therefore not between “recognised” and “unrecognised”. It is between different levels and forms of recognition.

What would have to happen for Tulu to enter the Eighth Schedule?

Next step cannot be taken by a Karnataka Cabinet resolution alone. Because the Eighth Schedule forms part of the Constitution, its amendment requires the constitutional amendment process.

Article 368 provides the parliamentary framework for constitutional amendments. Therefore, an eventual inclusion of Tulu would require action at the Union level and passage of the necessary constitutional amendment through Parliament, followed by the constitutional assent process.

That is fundamentally different from the Karnataka Cabinet's September 2026 administrative decision.

So, has Tulu's recognition journey ended?

No. It has arguably entered a new phase. For decades, the demand has included both greater recognition within Karnataka and inclusion in the Eighth Schedule. September 2026 Cabinet decision addresses the first part in a significant way.

Second part remains open. That gives Tulu's language movement a new constitutional question:

After securing administrative recognition in its principal Karnataka-speaking region, can the long-standing demand for Eighth Schedule status now move forward at the national level?

Answer will depend not on the Karnataka Cabinet alone, but on the Union government's approach to additional language demands and ultimately on the constitutional amendment process.

For now, the legal position is straightforward:

Tulu has gained additional administrative recognition in Karnataka. It has not yet gained Eighth Schedule status under the Constitution of India.

And that difference is precisely why the story does not end with the September 18 Cabinet decision.

✍Umesh Kumar Shimladka, Sr Journalist

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