Bodo Sahitya Sabha Questions Repeated Failure of Government Assurances

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Bodo Sahitya Sabha (BSS) raised questions about the long-standing issues related to Bodo education and the Bodo language, which the State government has time and again assured fulfillment but failed to comply with. The Sabha also expressed concern over the postal service advertisement that was published a while back, that created a lot of tumult.

General secretary of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha Prasanta Boro, while addressing the press here in the city on Friday said, “We have been trying to arrive at a conducive arrangement over our various demands with the State government for a long time now but each time, we had to face disappointment. On June 17, 2017, BSS met with the then education minister Himanta Biswa Sharma, who guaranteed that he would solve four of the crucial issues that we put forth.”

Boro stated that the four issues that Himanta Biswa Sharma assured to resolve included provision of NOC for land allotment by the forest officials to the Bodo medium venture schools in the forest areas so that they can be provincialised, creation of a separate cell for the Bodo and other tribal languages, permission for two assistant professors for the Bodo department in Dibrugarh University, and finally, creation of thirty assistant professors’ posts in 10 colleges.

“We again met with the then education minister Himanta Biswa Sharma on November 22, 2017, where the decision to conduct a separate TET for the Bodo medium candidates was taken. Along with this, appointment of two Bodo teachers in the Assam Printing & Publication Limited, construction of statues of noted Bodo personalities, and inclusion of Bodo members in the choosing committee in the cultural and literary pension which is declared each year, was taken,” said Bodo.

“This time, on June 27, 2018, we met with the now education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya who assured that within 40 days, NOC for land allotment by the forest officials to the Bodo medium venture schools in the forest areas will be provided. He also guaranteed that posts for assistant professors in 14 colleges will be created, approval provided for use of Bodo medium in 10+2 examinations, and a separate TET for the Bodo medium candidates will be conducted. After this, we had other office level meeting over the fulfillment of the issues on February 25, March 20 and 28, 2019, but the assurances never bore fruit,” said Boro.

The BSS now demanded that the assurances repeatedly provided be fulfilled at the earliest. Along with this, in a recent postal service advertisement, where it was mentioned that the candidates should have studied the local language at least upto IX standard (as compulsory or elective subject) as declared by the State government or as per constitutional provision relating to the 8th Schedule of the Constitution of India. For Assam, the language determined is Assamese excluding three districts of Barak Valley, where the local language is determined as Bengali, and BTAD areas, where the local language is determined as Bodo.

“There was a lot of commotion over alleged conspiracies of removing Assamese as the official language in the BTAD. The Non-Bodo Surakshya Samiti, Assam (NBSSA) raised several questions about the motive behind the notice. The BSS believes that the postal service is responsible behind the entire fiasco and BTC has nothing to do with it. If the NBSSA is suspicious, then why not raise questions about Bengali as the language determined for the three districts of Barak Valley? The BSS is not biased towards the use of only Bodo language in the BTAD areas because the area holds people from other communities as well,” said Boro.

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