By Santosh Kumar Singha, Mangalore
Maadoi Gaang, Rajar Gaang….segmentation of Bishnupriya Manipuri……Why?
I have always been proud of being a Bishnupriya Manipuri and never been hesitating to tell people belonging to other community about the greatness of our culture, beliefs etc. I keep my chest expanded informing other communities that
(1) We don't have segmentation of people in different classes in our community, everybody is given equal status that we don't see in other communities like Bengali and many more.
(2) We don't have dowry system in our culture which signifies how much we give respect to women which we find in Bengali, Marwari, Keralite, hindi bhasis and other communities.
There is other greatness in our culture. But I realized some discrimination among us, made by Rajargaang people on Maadoi's. Large populations of Maadoi’s are living in Tripura and Bangladesh. Their accent in speaking 'EMAR THAR' is bit different than Rajargaang and some of their vocabulary is also different…e.g. they call dhup denar 'TIKI' as 'Babar Gorago' etc. I experienced Rajargaang people making fun of the accent used by Maadoi's. Rajargaang people think that they belong to higher class and Maadoi's in lower class. Although all socio-cultural relation is there, yet some mental barrier is there among them and that is from Rajargaang side, not from Maadoi's. Rajargaang guys still hesitate to marry a Madooi……….Why?
We have handful of population and struggling to get our identity. At this moment, we need unity among us and individual initiatives. But keeping a section of our population apart and not accepting them will reduce our strength and this is nothing but a weakness in our movement.
Our intellectuals who have more knowledge about this segmentation are appreciated to share it.
JAI BISHNUPRIYA MANIPURI
JAI SADHUBABA
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Quite a point...
ReplyDeleteWat i want to say here is that the discrimination isn't much on the Social status as one being superior to another or not...The discrimination is about the difference in lifestyle and the accent of the same language...
It's like sitting on chairs of different designs but of same price...Meaning, socially equal but a bit different in lifestyles...Difference is not always bad, it's just as it is and it's better to leave that way...
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ReplyDeleteYes. the difference between Rajargang and Madoigang(hope i am right!) is blurring these days.
ReplyDeleteThe mockery of the accent of Madoigang made by some of us is extremely irritating and needless to say is ridiculiously in cheap taste.
Infact we should play this variety of our language to our advantage.
I would love to see someone write in Madoigang on this blog. Why just write? Lets do plays, poetry, debate etcetera in both Rajargang and Madoigang as well.
Let us explore the possibilities. Just last week I was talking to someone from The Loktak Clan's Department of Drama about possibilities of doing some plays. This article did trigger an idea in me to do a play in Madoigang.
Thanks Santosh.If this play comes alive, the credit will go to you.
Henryy
I appreciate my dear friend Tridiv's contribution in sharing knowledge about the discrimination of maadoi gaangs and i feel we should not take it lightly as this discrimination at present may ignite into a big explosion of BISHNUPRIYA MANIPURI into two groups in near future. What i want to communicate is that lets we rajargaang people do not discriminate and moreover let others not to do who are in villages and blindly accepted this difference. e.g. its my personal experience that whenever i ask some rajargaang person to find a bride of a rajargaan guy, they say that maadoi girl can not adjust with a rajargaang family because of different accent and lifestyle.I have never experienced any appreciation from a rajargaang about marrying a maadoi girl.Especially, this concept ic rooted among the people in remote villages who are not educated much.Seeing this, it looks like majority of us are not educated.We need education, proper education not just bookish knowledge so that our people can visualise the discrimination in open mind and take action on it.
ReplyDeleteLets be united, no discrimination at all and accept the difference if it is there in any case so that we can have inclusive growth.
Henryda, as your idea about the play is concerned, may it happen as soon as possible, i pray for that and we will recognised nationally soon.
HOMA
True. People in villages need to be educated further in this context.We must arise to this evil and take necessary steps to curb it at the grassroot level.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping things were blurring oflate. Unfortunately as you said its not....
One should not afraid of segmentation of BM on the basis of Maadoi Gang and Rajar Gang.History
ReplyDeletewitnessed,it was existing from the beginning of our community in Manipur.It says, there were two villages at the bank of Lake Loktak.One was Rajar Gang,belonged to Raja and other one Maadoi Gang,belonged to Maadoi,the Rani.
Although late Gokulananda Gitiswami
exhorted our BM not to have any discrimination and wrote in the form of poems..
"Rajar gaang Maadoi gaang yeta
Baapok aagor jiput eta
Tongaal bulia jaat na bisarei."
"Rajar gaang Maadoi gaang belei
Haabiye Bishnupriya bulei
Aami haabi kshatriyo sontaan."
I will give you one burning example
Most of us know the Rtd.Addl.chief
Engineer of Tripura,Shri Kajal Kanti Sinha,residing in Delhi,who is a grand son of a Maadoi lady,
named Janaki,the wife of advocate
Shri Kirti Sinha,whose daughter,
Shrimati Kusum Kamini Devi was Shri
Kajal Kanti`s mother.So we can say
there were marriages took place in those days among Maadoi and Raja.
Rebati Uncle, marraiges are still going on, no doubt about it............thats y i said socio-cultural relation is there.........what i am trying to communicate is that there is still discrimination by majority of the rajargaang people on maadoi's.......the fact is that majority of the rajargaang people still hesitate to do that...........as your example is concerned,they are educated people and we can not atleast expect this discrimination from educated people.......it can be seen rooted among uneducated/less educated people in villages.
ReplyDeleteMy dear Santosh...
ReplyDeleteIf i go to my personal experience, our village wintnessed two such marriages already...Removing discrimination doesn't mean that everyone should go for these kind of marriages...People are going for Madoi gang and rajar gang marriages and others are accepting, so what's the problem? They are taken as normal marriages and not like some burden or somethin...So, chill...Rebati uncle has truely said, it's been in existance for many years...This segmentation isn't creating any probs because the segmentation isn't based on the Status, but just on the difference in use of the language...There might be some unsocial elements who think otherwise, but i haven't experienced anyone yet...So, the difference doen't look like evil to me...
I am not saying that everyone should go for this type of marraige........but i raised the issue of not getting appreciation easily for such activities just because of accent difference.Whatever i got the exeprience is only from tripura rajargaang people but not from assam rajargaang people as no maadoi villages are there in assam.Rajargaang people in assam have less idea about maadoi.
ReplyDeleteFinally i just say that i have experienced only negative attitute from different rajargaang people for maadoi's and because of which the isue is raised.
Being actually from Assam (and a Rajargang), but now working in Tripura, I've had the oppurtunity to interact with the Madoigang people at all levels. And I can say with all certainty that this segmentation is based on ignorance and ancient perceptions. Apart from the lingiuistic lilt, I haven't seen any significant difference between the both. And for those Rajargang pundits who have any notion of superiority, I would like to point out that it is mostly the Madois who are holding high posts both in the govt. and non-govt. sectors in Bangladesh and also in Tripura. And on a lighter note, I would like to add that most of the prettier maidens are from the other side of the lake. BMs of this age and time must try to obliterate the gradually blurring line that seperates this two so called sects.
ReplyDeleteI strongly do agree with triproger
ReplyDelete