Literary works : Moving to Meitei Mayek : Clarion call for translation
- Sangai Express Editorial :: May 13, 2013 -

Meitei mayek Characters

Meitei Mayek in the class rooms came with a heavy price.

13th April, 2005, may well mark the watershed in the movement to introduce the indigenous script of the people in the school syllabus and figuratively speaking, the remains of the Manipur State Central Library continues to smoulder.

In two years time or so, the first batch of students will offer Meitei Mayek in the Class 10 Board’s exams.

From the days of street protest, the numerous cases of arson, where trucks and other assets were reduced to cinders, to the intrusion into schools to confiscate the Manipuri language text books written in Bengali script, to now a subject being taught in the class rooms, the journey of Meitei Mayek has been significant.

The burning of the Manipur Central Library was more than symbolic. It was an expression, a strong statement that the movement to revive the indigenous script of the people has moved onto a higher plane and there would be no backing down.

A telling statement that it absolutely makes no sense to rely on a ‘foreign’ script when the people have their own script, nurtured and promoted down the centuries.

Street politics and resorting to violent means to drive home a point is certainly unacceptable, but then given the situation nearly ten years back, maybe it was inevitable.

Perhaps this was aptly demonstrated by the State Government when it decided to drop all charges against the volunteers of MEELAL and ink a pact to gradually introduce the indigenous script of the people in the school syllabus.

If 2005 marked the formal entry of Meitei Mayek inside the classrooms of the students, then there were the earlier pundits, who preserved and worked on it, to keep alive the script, which literally went up in flames centuries back when the Puya was consigned to the flames to mark the adoption of Hinduism as the religion of the people.

Significant journey and there must be a many story that has not been told. In as much as the untold stories need to be told, there is however one urgent and very important point that has not caught the popular imagination of the people.

In M Okendro, the State has a young and energetic Education Minister and his observation that the great classical, literary works of Manipuri authors need to be translated into Meitei Mayek a few days back, highlights his energy being channelised in the right direction.

A whole lot of young generation are coming of age, who will not be familiar or unable to read the great Manipuri literary works written in Bengali script. The inimitable and the prolific, Dr Irengbam Mohendra Singh, in his Sunday Column, Diaspora Speak, dated 12th May, 2013 talked at length on some of the great literary works of Manipur writers.

Dr Lamabam Kamal’s Madhabi, Dr Jodha C Sanasam’s Akanba Shafugee Erei, (He calls them Warimapum, a Manipuri translation of the Novel), Hijam Anganghal’s Khamba-Thoibi and others such as the plays, Mainu Pemcha, Yairipok Thambalnu and the works of the great Khwairakpam Chaoba are some of the works he has mentioned in his article.

All these great literary works were written in Bengali script and it is only right that initiatives are taken up to translate these great works into Meitei Mayek and it goes without saying that it is the Government which should take the lead. Efforts at the level of the individual and the social organisations would be highly welcome too.