Feeding The Genre Of News-starved Children

Seram Neken *

Meitei Mayek script

'Meitei Mayek Newspaper' must reach every Meitei household, if we yearn to have an informed generation of young people. It must also be available at every desk of school library, so as to feed the news-starved Bengali-illiterate school students of Manipur.

Since the beginning of a 'Meitei Mayek Era' and the discontinuance of learning Bengali scripts in the schools of Manipur valley, much development has been witnessed in the way of promotion of the indigenous script of the Meiteis/Meeteis. Good news is that almost all school going children can read and write their native script.

However, the gloomy aspect of the development is that children of the present generation lack reading materials in their indigenous script. It will obviously take another decade to produce reading resources in Meitei Mayek. Meanwhile, the guardians, governmental and non-governmental agencies need to encourage the children to maintain their reading habits (at least with the available resources in Meitei Mayek and English scripts).

Vernacular newspapers play a big role in nurturing national character among the citizens of a nation by disseminating precious information and opinions pertaining to the native state, which the national papers can hardly dwell on. Besides the news, the vernacular dailies through their editorials and articles provide valuable knowledge on various aspects of the society – health, economy, politics, culture, literature and arts.

Regular digest of local newspapers will always help in reconstruction of indigenous identity among the young people. It also helps in nurturing responsible citizens in a society by facilitating personality development and thought process of the citizens, knowledge generation, public opinion formation, promotion of reading habits, concentration and documentation of archives.

Newspapers can be described as contemporary history of the society. What is 'News' today becomes 'History' the next day. When one misses the news of today, one surely misses a page of history. Children of today need to read newspapers regularly to update their information and knowledge on day-today basis.

Indian vernacular newspapers such as 'Samachar Darpan', 'Mira Tool Akhbar', 'Bombay Samachar', 'Udant Martund' and others took a great role in moulding nationalism among the Indians during the early part of Freedom Movement in the country.

Early local publications of Manipur such as 'Meitei Chanu' edited by Hijam Irabot, 'Dainik Manipur Patrika' edited by Thongbam Kullachandra, 'Bheigyabati Patrika' edited by Maisnam Biramani, 'Eikhoigi Manipur' by Loitam Yaima, 'Manipur Matam' edited by Rajkumar Shitaljit, 'Manipur Paojel' and 'Ngashi' of Keisham Kunjabihari, 'Praja' edited by Chongtham Somorendro, 'Janmabhumi' edited by RK Maipaksana, 'Prajatantra', 'Paojel', and a host of other publications influenced public opinion during critical times from the 1930s to 1950s. Nowadays, numerous vernacular newspapers in Manipur, besides serving the information needs of the people, are immensely helpful in shaping the society.

Unfortunately at present, vernacular newspapers do not at all serve the children of Manipur valley. Present day school students of Manipur particularly among the Meiteis and Meitei Pangals do not know how to read and write the Bengali script, as they are taught only the Meitei Mayek script in their schools. However on the other hand, there is at present only one local daily which comes out with the Meitei Mayek script. Local newspapers except the 'Hueiyen Lanpao Meitei Mayek' edition are available in Bengali and English scripts (English script is used for other dialects also).

Insertion of a small Meitei Mayek section in the Bengali-scripted local dailies is only symbolic and it does not cater to the news-starved children of Manipur valley. In such a situation, we are going to produce a generation of youths who are badly malnourished with the day-to-day happenings in their own state. Moreover, the habit of reading daily newspapers, which is a must for nurturing a complete citizen of the country, is obviously lacking among the present day children of the state.

For the last few years, most children in Manipur have missed important news and views as they do not glance at local newspapers published in Bangali-script. Meitei Mayek edition of Hueiyen Lanpao Daily, which started its publication in the year 2009 is yet to cross a thousand circulation figure. The paltry circulation of the lone Meitei Mayek newspaper indicates that neither the children of Manipur have developed newspaper reading habits, nor are they encouraged to do so.

Publication of Newspapers, Magazines, Comic books, and other text books for children in Meitei Mayek script is urgently required in order to serve the Bengali-illiterate children of Manipur. The parents and school teachers have a big role to instill the children with the habit of reading local newspapers.

Meitei Mayek newspaper must reach every Meitei household, if we yearn to get rid of an uninformed generation of young people. It must also be available at every library desk of Manipur schools, so as to feed the news-starved Bengali-illiterate school students of Manipur.