Speech for Sahitya Akademy
9th March/15, Kamani Auditorium
Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi.
By-Shri
Urkhao Gwra Brahma
BTAD (ASSAM)
Every language and
literature carries unconquerable desire to be popular in the wider world. It is
the basic instinct of the human being also that what is practiced by them
should be appreciated by others. Literature is an exposure of thoughts,
thoughts have no specific color but when it is carried out by any particular
language to wider field of study, it gets painted with the colour of community
or nationality. Today we are known by the color of community and interpretation
of culture, but it is the movement of literature that ties our minds and hearts
and influence our way of creativities too.
Bodo language is one of the oldest languages of India and
across, though its history of formal literature is about 100 years’ only. Way
back in earliest part of the 20th century the Bodo literature had
been formalized as written form from the oral practice. In the pre independence
period its formal literature was broadly influenced by the Sanskrit and Bengali
literature. But in the post independence period the Assamese literature influenced
that and now the Hindi and English literatures’ also thinning-out their
influences over the same. Starting from
its first journal ‘Bibar’ the journey of Bodo literature has achieved today the
status of recognized literatures of the nation. But its contact to the many
Indian masses is still a far distance. Beginning
with the documentation of social practices and cultural traditions the development
of Bodo literature began in the middle part of the 20th century. The
process of social transition and emerging cultural consciousness always
occupied the major space in its development. In the past century it was
encountered by numbers of language movements. Even language and literature consciousness
among Bodos caused some of strong nationalist movements in 1963, 1974 and 1975 respectively.
In the later stages also every social or political movement had been linked
with language and literature issues. Ultimately it was recognized one of the
scheduled languages of India in 2003.
Literature movement in India still needs a long way to go to
achieve its central objective of creating a collective literature. We know that
the thought of new modernity of one certain period of time gets interpretations
as the orthodox after passing of eras. Political
revolutions, social revolutions and economic revolutions have shaped the world
in the form of nations and equipped them with constitution and system. But the
revolution of literature has shaped the world with shared aims in thoughts for
humanity and nature. We have the issue of diverse literatures living in
singular way in the name of community, religion and culture. Many literatures
of various linguistic groups never get exchanged only because of language
barrier. The only factor keeping India sensitively disintegrated in mind is
nothing but a language barrier. We need
an inclusive and dynamic literary movement where literatures of marginalized
languages also get read in the volumes of common languages. Reciprocally the
literatures of common languages also should get read in the pages of all marginalized
languages. The dream of creating Indian literature may be fulfilled by the process
of recognizing all literatures, oral or formal. For that a centralized
initiative without harming characteristics of those literatures need to be
taken. The essence of those literatures should not remain undisclosed only
because of the ground that same are unrecognized by our constitution or law. The
work of translation is the major path to familiarize the literature of any
language to every language. In India there are numbers of undisclosed languages
which have also unique and precious folk literatures having value to enrich the
greater Indian literature. Even hundreds of languages and literatures have
disappeared without coming to the surface which could also be rich tributaries
to the Indian literatures.
The North Eastern states of India have about 100 such un-contacted
dialects having rich oral literature. The
Arunachal Pradesh itself has over 60 such dialects which are never contacted
with the common literature. Nagaland has also similar scenario of language
where a good number of languages are living under cover. Garo language of
Meghalaya and Rabha language of Assam are also losing their practices in formal
ground. These languages are also rich in folk and traditional literature, but
ever remain unrecorded. If literature represents language of the people, their
culture and tradition, than these languages should also be embraced within the
common boundary of literature. Bodo, Dimasa, Garo and Kokborok fall under the
Tibetto Burman language stock but out of this four, only Bodo is recognized by
the constitution so far. It would be incomplete if literary world think about
notified languages only when working for literature. We need to work on the
issue of formalizing all folk and traditional literature also and let the
essence of their literature also bloom in the vast garden of Indian literature.
India is known for its motto unity in diversity where diverse linguistic and
cultural identities live together and rise together. No any language should die
only because of our apathy towards those languages.
Being a writer with journalistic outline basically, I always see
the literature as the media to tell our story of living as the individual or
society in the world. There is no
barrier of fields where literature cannot exist. Creating a classic literature
may be most difficult zone but it is also a stronger most means to stream out
the best, beautiful thoughts and lessons about human being, their culture and
nature. Tribals are believed to be the aboriginal and indigenous groups of
people in the world and hence their languages and literatures are also the
origin of all languages and literatures. The present rich Indian literature is
also a result of the process of integration of such literatures through
languages, where folk and oral literatures of aboriginal group of people
brought together. But the trend of disappearing of those languages and
literatures is not healthy sign. Maximum effort with full commitment to
protect, preserve and flourish those languages and literatures can only save
the true fabric of rich Indian literature. The idea of Tribal Language cum
Literature Promotion Bureau (TLLPB) needs to be conceptualized and set up to
save those languages which are losing their existence today. I hope,
the Sahitya Akademy will try to travel beyond the present norms and practices and
with utmost care it will expand works for the literatures of those languages
which still exist as the undisclosed language.
Thanking you all
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