[ Ranjit Sinha ]
ITANAGAR, Aug 4: Promotion of literature and literary activities is a must to safeguard the culture and language of any community, said Sahitya Akademi’s eastern regional secretary Devendra Kumar Devesh.
Devesh said this while addressing a literary programme which was organized jointly by the Sahitya Akademi and the Nikhil Bishnupriya Manipuri Sahitya Parishad, Assam State Committee (NBMSP-ASC) at Silchar College in Assam on 2 August.
Highlighting the Sahitya Akademi’s role in promoting the literatures of various linguistic minorities of the country, Devesh emphasized on involving the young generation in literary activities.
“Language, dialect and culture can be saved only through promotion of literary activities of that community,” he said.
Lauding the literature of the Bishnupriya Manipuri community, he asked the young writers of the community to take Bishnupriya Manipuri literature to newer heights.
He said the Sahitya Akademi would play a pivotal role in promoting Bishnupriya Manipuri literature and chalk out a plan and a programme for the purpose.
The Bishnupriya Manipuri Sahitya Parishad’s Assam unit executive president and poet Sudhanya Sinha also spoke during the programme, which was presided over by noted poet and critic Barun Kumar Sinha.
Eminent littérateurs, including NBMSP-ASC president Dils Lakshmindra Sinha and general secretary Shibendra Sinha, besides
Mathura Sinha and Kanchanbaran Sinha, recited self-composed poems in presence of a large number of noted personalities of the Bishnupriya Manipuri community, including Nikhil Bishnupriya Manipuri Mahasabha advisor Chandra Kanta Sinha, its secretary-general Udhay Sinha, general secretary Swapan Sinha, poet Rashamay Sinha, and others.
The participants also mourned the demise of photojournalist Malin Sharma (43) and observed a minute’s silence as a mark of respect to the departed soul.
