In An Era Of Language Wars, Who Will Speak For My Mother Tongue — Bishnupriya Manipuri?

We often talk about the importance of a multi-linguistic society in a democracy. Yet, we aren’t much concerned about the status of many minority languages. My mother tongue Bishnupriya Manipuri is one of those minority languages.

The speakers of Bishnupriya Manipuri, concentrated in the Barak Valley of Assam, Tripura, Bangladesh, and parts of Manipur like Jiribam, share many cultural similarities with the speakers of Meitei Manipuri, the dominant language in the plains of Manipur.

Although Bishnupriya Manipuri language is akin to Bengali, Assamese and Odia, it is not a dialect of either of these languages as there are many differences with my mother tongue, which has its origin in Sanskrit and developed under the influence of Sauraseni Prakrit and Magadhi Prakrit.

My mother tongue has two dialects — Rajar Gang (King’s language) and Madoi Gang (Queen’s language). The difference is that the latter is melodious and the former is slightly harsh. I am a speaker of the Rajar Gang dialect.

The Bishnupriya Manipuris aren’t a vote bank in either Tripura or Assam, where there is no single assembly constituency with my community being dominant. So, our issues are hardly highlighted by political parties and are rarely discussed in the mainstream media. Although the Meitei Manipuri is recognized in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in the name of “Manipuri”, Bishnupriya Manipuri isn’t included in the list. This has been a big blow to not just the language but also cultural identity as only Meiteis got recognition as Manipuris while the Bishnupriya Manipuris were left out.

Offering Laamor Baat to the ancestors near the premises of the house on the day of Bishu, the last day of the year.

There have been movements by community organisations to include Bishnupriya Manipuri in the Eighth Schedule. Importantly, there have been strong objections from some powerful lobbies to the name “Manipuri” being associated with my community. As a result, the Congress government of Assam led by Hiteshwar Saikia had to stay its own Cabinet decision of 1983 to introduce Bishnupriya Manipuri at the primary level.

There were movements — called the Bhasa Aandolan — from the community to introduce the language at primary levels in Assam and also in my state, Tripura at various times. In one of those movements launched by Nikhil Bishnupriya Manipuri Students Union, a young woman called Sudeshna Singha was killed in police firing in Patharkandi of Barak Valley in Assam on March 16, 1996. This day is celebrated by the people of my community as the “Bhasha Shahid Divas” in the memory of Sudeshna Singha. In other words, March 16 is my community’s 21st February, which is celebrated as International Mother Language Day.

Importantly, the Supreme Court in its landmark judgement in 2006 recognised the Bishnupriya Manipuri language as a separate entity in the family of Indo-Aryan languages and stated that there is nothing wrong in using the term Manipuri either as a prefix or a suffix to the nomenclature of the Bishnupriya.

Despite this, the identity issue of my mother tongue lingers. In both the censuses of 2001 and 2011, a misspelt “Bishnupuriya” was inserted in the mother tongue category and Bishnupriya Manipuri or Manipuri Bishnupriya was mentioned under the language category named “Bishnupuriya”. It upset many in the community as this has created confusion with some taking this opportunity to distort the identity of my Bishnupriya Manipuri community with the name “Bishnupuriya”!

Interestingly, the census of 1951 mentions that there is a language called “Bisnupriya” spoken only in Manipur by 114 people while not mentioning any data about the speakers of the language in both Tripura and Assam — this suggests that speakers of my Bishnupriya Manipuri were identified under the “Manipuri” category together with the Meiteis in the census of 1951. There have been demands from community organisations for recognition of the Bishnupriya Manipuri in the language category but it is yet to find support from any political platform.

A big moment for my community came when the Left Front government led by Dasarath Debbarma took the revolutionary step in 1995 to introduce the Bishnupriya Manipuri at the primary level — a fruitful outcome born out of the struggles led by the members of the community at various times. The CPI(M) leader who took a crucial role behind this move was Bimal Singha, who was then the Speaker of the Tripura Assembly and who later became the cabinet minister. He, a prolific writer himself, undoubtedly was the tallest leader in the state — and also in the country — from the Bishnupriya Manipuri community. He was one of the popular leaders of the ruling CPM at that time. However, his untimely demise — he was assassinated on March 31, 1998 by NLFT terrorists, who were waging a war for an unrealistic independent Tripura — left the community orphan. The effects of his demise are still widely felt by this linguistic minority community.

Later in the academic year 2018-19, the Bishnupriya Manipuri language was introduced in Class VI and it was extended to Class VIII under the Biplab Deb-led BJP government, another big step by the government of Tripura. In Assam, Bishnupriya Manipuri was finally introduced at the primary level in 2001 under the AGP government.

Despite the introduction of Bishnupriya Manipuri at the primary level, sadly, there hasn’t been much progress on the ground in Tripura. In Tripura, there are no separate teachers recruited by the government for the subject. As a result, many of the Bishnupriya Manipuri students generally don’t choose the subject seeing no scope in the future.

Communication and writing in a language are essential to keep it alive. There have been notable weeklies and magazines in the Bishnupriya Manipuri language. The erstwhile Left government started a magazine called Chingkhei and also a weekly called Tripura Che, which was a popular weekly among the community but, unfortunately, by around 2012, its publication stopped. Other notable newspapers include Kaakei and Amar Pou. In Kailashahar of my home district, Unakoti, some notable weeklies and magazines include Kannapi, Kaalor Bou, Firoi etc. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t published anymore due to lack of funds.

Even after 76 years of India’s independence, the critical issues of minority languages are often ignored in the mainstream media, where the language debates are largely centralised on Hindi versus the dominant regional languages. Sadly, even these debates are mostly focussed on some statements given by politicians, often to get the media’s attention, without going into real issues faced by these languages in the era of modernity dominated by English.

At a time when the dominant regional languages are facing problems, one can just imagine the poor plight of the linguistic minority languages like my mother tongue, Bishnupriya Manipuri, listed as a vulnerable language by UNESCO.

(Sagarneel Sinha is a columnist.)