Mail News Service
Imphal, April 27 : Manipur State Award for Literature, 2012 was today conferred to Kshetri Bira for his work “Nangbu Ngaibada”. The award was handed over to Bira by Governor Gurbachan Jagat Singh during the Fifth Annual Award Distribution Ceremony of the Manipur State Award for Literature, 2012 organised by the Department of Education (S) at Kangla Hall, Kangla here on Saturday.
It carries a cash amount of Rs 200, 000 along with a plaque, a citation and a shawl.Governor addressing the function said , “Manipuri language, one of the 22 scheduled languages under the Constitution of India, with its own script is regarded as the most advanced of the Tibeto-Burmese languages spoken in India.
Though, some scholars contested the classification of Manipuri language as Tibeto-Burmese, most accepted the classification made in the Linguistic Survey of India conducted under the leadership of George Abraham Grierson of the ICS from 1894 to 1928. Incidentally, the LSI describes 364 languages and dialects, while the 1991 Census recorded 1576 mother tongues with separate grammatical structures.
In the fast changing global environment, with English becoming the international language, languages with lesser number of speakers are being wiped out and languages with more speakers are pushing out the smaller ones. It has been assessed that one language or dialect is becoming extinct every two weeks in the world. Hence, for a language with limited number of people speaking it, Manipuri and its sister dialects face tremendous challenges for its survival for posterity.
The richness of the Indian literature is mainly contributed by the works in the different Indian languages, many of which await translation to either English or other languages.
Hence, this richness is left unknown to those who do not know the particular native language. This is true for Manipuri literature also. During the last few decades, Manipuri literature has grown tremendously, with books on different genre available. However, this is almost unknown to the outside world. While appreciating the Department for its initiative in recognizing outstanding creative talent, I would venture to request that efforts need to be made for translating Manipuri works into English and other languages. This will enhance the popularity of the work and I believe, if this is done, many of our creative writers will become household names in both inside and outside India. This will also help in getting publishers for our creative writers who ultimately publish their own work as there is serious dearth of publishers. Manipuri literature as everyone of you is aware is very small, especially with the influence of TV which has taken the younger generation away from reading. Even though our creative writers are second to none, I am sad to mention that the number of creative writers who had got Padma Awards in literature and education from Manipur is still very less being only 8 and the last award was for the year 2000. This is mainly due to the fact that the richness of Manipuri literature is largely unknown to the outside world, though every year there is a Sahitya Akademi Award.
This is not only for the Manipuri language but also for the other tribal dialects. Only the State can provide the needed patronage in a systematic manner for the growth of any language.”
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/state-award-for-literature-conferred-to-kshetri-bira/
