Rift between Tripura BJP & tribal allies widens over Roman script for Kokborok

Agartala: BJP’s ties with its tribal allies TIPRA Motha and Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) have come under strain over the demand to adopt the Roman script for Kokborok, spoken by about 31 per cent of Tripura’s population.

TIPRA Motha, founded by royal scion Pradyot Kishore Debbarman, has led a movement seeking to replace the Bengali script with the Roman script for Kokborok. Kokborok has been written in Bengali script since the 14th-century royal regime. Tribal parties have pressed for the Roman script for around three decades, a demand that earlier led the Left Front govt to set up a commission on the issue.


The push intensified after the second BJP-led govt took office and TIPRA Motha emerged as the principal opposition in the Tripura assembly in 2023.

CM Manik Saha said the govt would not allow “any foreign scripts” for Kokborok and suggested Devanagari, Bengali or other Indian scripts instead. He said foreign scripts would not be permitted as a medium for teaching Kokborok, aligning with the CM Kokborok Sahitya Parishad (KSP), which has proposed Devanagari or Bengali for the language.

As demonstrations for the Roman script continued, BJP ally IPFT publicly objected to the CM's position and asked him to avoid “unsolicited advice” on the mother tongue of different communities.

IPFT general secretary Swapan Debbarma said the script should be decided by the language’s speakers, noting that the CM's mother tongue is Bengali and that he should refrain from making “unnecessary statements” on the issue. Debbarma said views from those not well-versed in the language amount to interference and added that the CM “does not need to have an opinion on every matter.”

Debbarma also cited the Left’s decline in Tripura’s hilly areas, linking it to opposition to the Roman script “without valid justification,” and warned that political power is not permanent.

He said the CM's remarks could be personal because neither the BJP nor the govt has issued any written policy decision on the Kokborok script.