Manipur Rajya Sabha MP Leishemba Sanajaoba on Thursday wrote to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal urging the latter to include Manipuri language as an associate official language of Assam.
In the letter to the Assam CM Sanajaoba wrote, “If you do so, not only the Manipuris of Assam but Manipuris all over the world will be indebted to you and your government. This would be able to protect the identity, history, culture and tradition of Manipuri in Assam. Moreover the historic love, bond and relationship of Manipur and Assam would be strengthened.”
In the recent Rajya Sabha sitting also, Sanajaoba had requested the Speaker to grant classical status to Manipuri language as a modern Indian language.
Further stating that the Government of India has established criteria for granting classical status to the modern Indian languages and the union government has granted classical status to six languages that fulfilled the criteria, Sanajaoba said that if the criteria to grant classical status to a language are considered, the Manipuri language certainly qualifies to be a classical language.
The six languages which have been given the status of classical language by the union government are Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kanada, Malayalam and Odia.
Manipuri people settling in different parts of Assam have been demanding inclusion of Manipuri language as an associate official language of Assam. They have even started taking up different forms of democratic agitation to fulfil their demand.
It may be mentioned that there are 102 Manipuri medium schools recognised by the Assam government in Assam and Manipuri language has been taught in the schools since 1956.
