Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, January 02 2010:
The Council of Tribal Literature Societies, Manipur has decried the alleged total negligence of tribal languages by the State Government.
A press release issued by the Council's chairman Ragongning Gangmei noted that there are 34 tribal language groups whereas Manipuri (Meiteilon) is the lingua franca and official language of the State.
However, the State Government has neglected the tribal languages and nothing has been recommended for them in the proposal to the 13th Finance Commission report recently submitted to the Finance Commission of India despite repeated proposals/requests submitted to the Chief Minister and the Principal Secretary (Finance).
There has been no initiative to promote tribal languages even after 35 years of attaining statehood.
The State Government's apathy towards tribal language groups is clearly reflected in the State budget of Education Department where not a single rupee was included for tribal languages although the State Government has been spending crores of rupees every year to implement various educational programmes through Education Department, SCERT, Board of Secondary Education Manipur (BSEM), Council of Higher Secondary Education Manipur (COHSEM) and other centrally sponsored programmes.
Educational text books of English, Hindi and Manipuri are developed and published at the State's expenses by the Department of Education, BSEM and COHSEM.
But there is no one who is responsible for tribal languages, for production of text books, introduction of these languages in schools/colleges.
There is no specific plan and policy of the State for development of tribal languages, it decried.
Only recently Rs 2-6 lakhs are allocated under Tribal Research Institute of Tribal Development Department for production of school text books for 10 tribal language groups which means that each tribal language group receives just Rs 20,000 to Rs 60,000 .
This is ridiculous as the printing cost of a single text book is more than Rs one lakh.
Moreover, each language group has been producing 6/7 text books every year as most of these language groups have been introduced from class I to XII.
This nature of assistance for decades had marginalised the tribal languages, it asserted.
Nevertheless, the council appealed to all tribal language groups in Manipur not to be downhearted but remain more determined, committed and work harder to uplift their languages with or without patronage of the State Government.