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TIPRA Women’s Union, the women’s wing of Tripura’s opposition TIPRA Motha party, submitted a memorandum on Saturday to Governor Sathyadu Narain Arya to Romanian text input for Kokborok language, among other demands.
Earlier the police stopped them in front of the circuit house in Agartala. The protest came a week after a similar protest from the Tibera Indigenous Students’ Union led to a clash in which 20 people were injured in tear gas and five policemen in stone-throwing.
TWF Secretary Sharmila Deparma later told reporters that Raj Bhavan Abhiyan was supposed to bring the long-pending demand related to Kokborok, the lingua franca of most tribal communities in the state, to the governor’s attention. “The Romanian script is a favorite of most of the Cockboroc speakers,” she said.
“Our organization is not against any language or script. However, in the best interest of students, we would like to reiterate that students should be given the option to choose their preferred script and write the exams. This is directly related to the future of the indigenous people of the state and is also very necessary to protect their identity,” read the note. Presented by a delegation of five members of the TWF.
Both Bengali and Roman scripts are used to write the language. Since the formation of the first BJP-led government in the state in 2018, there has been pressure to introduce the Devanagari script, though other political parties, students, activists and cultural workers are against the move to “disturb the language dynamics in the region”.
Thousands of Tipra Women’s Federation – TWF warriors from across the state participated in the ‘Raj Bhavan Abhiyan’ today to demand the inclusion of the Roman script for Kokpurok. #OurLanguageOurRights# No solution, no relief@tweet pic.twitter.com/oBw4VU8xUH
– Tipra (@tipra_official) June 24, 2023
Opposition leader Animesh Deparma, who joined the protest, said that just as the Bengali speakers of what was then East Bengal did not accept Urdu when the language was imposed on them in 1952, the tribes of Tripura could not accept the Bengali script.
“We said that not everything can be written in Bengali script. Where is the mistake? Three linguistic committees were set up under the leadership of the late Shyamasharan Tripura, the late Kumud Kondu Chaudhary and Babitra Sarkar. They said that Kokpurok should be written in Roman script. How does this government say that Kokpurok should be written in script Bengali!” he said.
In March, Prime Minister Manik Saha said his government was ready to prepare a new script in “any Indian language” for Kukpuruk. Citing this, Dabarma said that Saha had not yet kept his word on his assurances that a commission would be set up on the issue. “If it doesn’t happen soon, we will have Mahakaran Abhyan,” he said, warning of protests across the state, from Pesharthal in North Tripura district to Saprom in South Tripura.
“The Roman script will happen someday, if not today or tomorrow,” he said.
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