Script row: TISF calls for road, railway blockade from Feb 12

Tipra Indigenous Students Federation (TISF), the student wing of the Opposition Tipra-Motha, is planning a blockade of National Highway-8 and rail routes for an indefinite period from Monday.

The NH-8 is the lifeline of Tripura which also has a lone railway line connecting it with the rest of India.

This planned blockade is part of the students’ protest against the Tripura Board of Secondary Education’s (TBSE) decision not to allow tribal students appearing for ‘Kokborak’ language to write answers in the Roman script.

Kokborak is the language of Borok people who are geographically known as Tripuris.

The TBSE will conduct the Higher Secondary and Secondary Examinations from March 1 and over 5,000 tribal students would appear in both the examinations.

They want to write their answer scripts for the ‘Kokborak’ language in Roman script instead of Bengali. The issue also recently rocked the Tripura Assembly session.

Announcing the blockade from February 12, TISF President Sajra Debbarma said that the TBSE President Dhananjoy Gan Chowdhury earlier said that both Bengali and English scripts would be allowed but recently he changed his decision saying that only Bengali script would be allowed.

For several years, Kokborok language paper answers were written in the TBSE examinations in both Bengali and English scripts.

“Our road and rail route blockade would continue till we got a written assurance from Chief Minister (Manik Saha) that he would allow Roman script for Kokborok language in the board examinations,” the student leader told the media.

Debbarma clarified that they were not against Bengali script but “our demand is to allow both the scripts so that the students have a choice.”