Bodos need inclusive and dymic literary movement: Sahitya Akademi award winner

From our Correspondent

KOKRAJHAR, March 11:  Former Rajya Sabha MP from Kokrajhar, Urkhao Gwra Brahma, who is also recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award, 2015 said there was need to work on the issue of formalizing all folk and traditiol literature and let the essence of their literature bloom in the vast garden of Indian literature. He also said India is known for its motto unity in diversity where diverse linguistic and cultural identities live together and rise together. No language should die only because of apathy towards that language. Brahma received the Sahitya Akademi award, 2015 on March 9 in New Delhi from the president of the Sahitya Akademi, Viswath Prasad Tiwari at an award function held at Kamani Auditorium, Rabindra Bhavan in presence of its secretary Sreenivash Rao and other prominent persolities.

In his speech at the award function, Brahma said the Bodo language was one of the oldest languages of India, though its history of formal literature is about 100 years old 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 it and now Hindi and English literature were also thinning-out their influences over the same, he said adding that starting from its first jourl Bibar the journey of Bodo literature had achieved the status of recognized literature.  

Brahma said the past century had seen many language movements. Even language and literature consciousness among Bodos caused some strong tiolist 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 as one of the scheduled languages of India in 2003, he added.

“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 interpreted as orthodox after passing of eras. Political revolutions, social revolutions and economic revolutions have shaped the world in the form of tions and equipped them with constitution and system,” he said adding that the revolution of literature had shaped the world with shared aims in thoughts for humanity and ture.

The literature of various linguistic groups never got exchanged only because of language barrier. The only factor keeping India sensitively disintegrated in mind was nothing but a language barrier; he said and added that the Bodos needed an inclusive and dymic literary movement where literature of margilized languages also got read in the volumes of common languages. Reciprocally, the literature of common languages also should get read in the pages of all margilized languages.

The north-eastern States of India had about 100 such un-contacted dialects having rich oral literature.  Aruchal Pradesh itself had over 60 such dialects which never got included in common literature. Brahma said that Bodo, Dimasa, Garo and Kokborok languages fell under the Tibetto Burman language stock but out of these four, only Bodo was recognized. He further said there was need to work on the issue of formalizing all folk and traditiol literature.