Discordant thought of Meiteis : Imperative for rectification

Dr S Birahari Singh
The community or society which has quality ideological culture excels in many respects. This proposition is irrefutable and applicable universally. A handsome amount of discordant thoughts is available in Meitei ideological culture. The few of them are exposed in this article with the hope for rectification of the same. As a realist they are presented here without antagonism towards anybody.
Meitei and Manipuri discordance
At the first instance, ‘Meitei’ is a primordial term found in Meiteilon vocabulary originated or developed from the language organs of the Meiteis. On the another hand, ‘Manipuri’ is an Indo-Aryan term originated or developed from the language organs of the Indo-Aryan people. It is made with a suffix ‘i’ after toponym ‘Manipur’. Meiteis are Tibeto–Burman Mongoloid people. They don’t belong to Indo-Aryan group of people. It is not arguable.
The term ‘Meitei’ is an endonym. An endonym is a name that is used by a group of people, or the people who live in a place, to identify themselves or their place of origin.
Endonyms are often based on a people’s history, culture, and experiences. In short, it is a repository of legacies. The term ‘Meitei’ indicates biological ancestry of an ethnic group predominantly settled in the present State of Manipur. Meiteis origin myth has two sprouts – Meitei and Meetei. Scientific authentication of the two cannot be done till now. So persistence in use of the two terms is still with us.
After Meiteis came into contact with people of outgroups certain exonyms came into being like Kathay, Kassay, Makley, Moglai and Manipuri. It is an anthropological reality that any community in the world, new or old has its own endonym or ethnonym. It is also an anthropological certainty that a large number of communities across the globe has their exonyms. An exonym is an established, non-native name for a group of people, an individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect that is primarily used outside the particular place inhabited by the group or linguistic community. It’s, thus, devoid of cherished legacy of a particular community.
Simply, exonyms were given by the non-natives for their convenience. This is a short cut conclusion. Certainly, underpinning motives are entrenched deeply in human psyche.
Both cultural colonizers and territorial colonizers did it (exonyms were given to the colonized) usually. History stands witness to these things. Sadhguru, a world famous personality even referred to such practices as the ‘technology of dominance and technology of enslaving’ in his reply to a question from Miss Kiran Bedi, former IPS officer.
From amongst the exonyms, Manipur and Manipuri have become more popular because of greater number and mobility of people from Indian sub continent and Europe.
Disregarding the negative aspects of the terms, it is a fact that the terms were made de jure terms since the time of king Pamheiba. Other exonyms are superseded by them. Even they superseded the de facto primordial term ‘Meitei’ or ‘Meetei’. The erstwhile Meitei kingdom was named Manipur through deceptive means or intellectual malpractice. Therefore the writer once stated, “Mani-pur and Manipuri are symbols of bamboozlement”.
Establishment of a congruence between the two terms, ‘Meitei’ and ‘Manipuri’ is not an intellectual propriety considering etymological, structural phonetic, chronological and semantic aspects of the terms. In this context a reference can be given to an article in the EPao of the 29th October, 2024 webcasted by The Sangai Express on 8th September 2023.
Appropriate use of the terms is solicited from all the concerned.
Meiteilon and Manipuri discordance
It is also reiterated here that ‘Meiteilon’ and ‘Manipuri’ are not the same. Attempt to establish a similarity between the two arbitrarily is not an intellectual propriety. The term ‘Meiteilon’ indicates that the Meiteis have originated or developed a peculiar language from their language organs. There is no other word except ‘Meiteilon’ that truly and clearly indicates that there is a unique language originated from the language organs of the Meiteis, a Sino Tibeto-Burman Mongoloid group of people. Name of our mother tongue has to remain the same before and after change of name of Meitei kingdom to Manipur. Malayalam is Malayalam before and after creation of Kerala State. Names of Khasi and Garo languages remain the same before and after creation of Meghalaya State. Urdu is Urdu before and after creation of Pakistan.
Precisely, Meiteilon is a primordial name while Manipuri is a term adopted during the reign of king Pamheiba. Phonetic symbols of Indo-Aryan language and Tibeto-Burman language are also different numerically and structurally. Indo-Aryan language name and phonetic symbols disguise Tibeto-Burman language identity. Here it is worth to remind that there are approximately 100 languages in the world which use English letters for writing their languages. However, primordial names of their languages remain the same. What is the harm ?
Regarding description of our State, there are two universally accepted proposi- tions: Manipur is a multiethnic State.
Manipur is a multilingual State.
The demonym, Manipuri to be restricted, in its reference, to a single ethnic group or community is nothing but an exposure of the practice of sectarianism against the backdrop of the first preposition which is detrimental to integrity of the State in addition to certain other disadvantages. A single language, Meiteilon to be called Manipuri language or Manipuri is a deficiency in understanding of the multilinguality of the State against the backdrop of the second proposition. No native speaker wants his mother tongue to be spoken and written only by the native speakers. If possible, they want their language to be spoken and written by everyone in the world. Those Meiteis who want their language to be called Meiteilon are not exceptions.
Lastly, rectification through a legislation is invited so that identity of our language and community cannot be camouflaged by such discordance. Intellectual propriety is to be maintained being a learned community.
The writer is former Principal YK College, Email ID: biraharis@gmail.com.