Newmai News Network
Imphal | December 16
The Council of Tribal Languages & Literature Societies, Manipur(CTLLSM) expressed its concern today “tribal languages education” is likely tophase out soon in Manipur due to lack of State’s patronage and gross negligenceby the State Government.
The CTLLSM alleged that “tribal languages are taken as tribalspecific by the State Government and therefore they are always sidelined by theState Government in the State’s Budgets since the inception.”
The CTLLSM stated that Manipur is a multilingual State inhabited by38 recognised communities, of which 35 are tribal linguistic communities.“These linguistic communities need a common future along with other language groupsin the State of Manipur. Therefore, promotion of tribal languages in the Stateis for the common good of Manipur as a whole and it should not be viewed astribal specific,” the CTLLSM added.
It then pointed out that, in a State like Manipur tribal languageseducation is of paramount importance for many reasons. The CTLLSM cited some ofsuch reasons as strengthening unity and integrity of the State; for ushering ina common future for all communities in the State and; also, language is therepository of custom, culture, knowledge system and history of a community. “Sopromoting tribal languages in the State is to enrich the culture of Manipur,”it added.
It can be noted here that, so far, 18 tribal languages have beenapproved for introduction in school education system and 17 are yet to come up.
“Approval of a language is supposed to entail fund allocation in theState Budget. Fund should be earmarked in the Plan and Non-Plan with Recurringand Non-Recurring expenditures for continuity of the language education.However, unfortunately, there is no fund for tribal languages education in theState’s Budgets since the inception,” the Council said.
“It seemed that tribal languages are nobody’s languages in Manipur.No one has concern for them, neither the State Government nor many of theelected people’s representatives have concerns for tribal languages education”,the CTLLSM rued, adding, “And still the State’s apathy towards tribal languageseducation is continuing even with the new State Government in the State”. TheCouncil then said that the situation is now going from bad to worse with thecut of TRI fund for tribal languages education since 2017 onwards till today.
It then cautioned that the State government’s “apathy” towardstribal languages may affect the State’s integrity and it may force the tribalcommunities to seek alternative arrangements from the Centre/Delhi forpromotion of their mother tongues education in the State. “Because the triballanguages are the life, identity, pride, aspiration and future of the tribalcommunities,” the Council said.
The CTLLSM then claimed that it had been submitting representationsand memoranda for allocation of fund in the State’s Budget since 2009.
“It is the desperate and heart rending appeal of the CTLLSM that it is imperative that a decision is taken by the State Government to earmark fund regularly for tribal languages education commencing from the Revision of Budget Estimate (RE) for 2018-19 and Budget Estimate (BE) for 2019-2020,” the CTLLSM added.
