Leishemba urges House to allow both Bengali and Meitei Mayek in UPSC examinations

Imphal: Rajya Sabha MP Leishemba Sanajaoba in ‘special mention’ urged the House to allow candidates to write in both Bengali and Meitei Mayek scripts in Manipuri literature as optional papers in UPSC Civil Service examinations.

Leishemba put up the special mention during the ongoing parliamentary session of Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.

Leishemba informed the House that in UPSC examination, Manipur literature has two optional papers and both the two papers I and II has 250 marks each with a total of 500 marks.

Since 2006, Manipur government has been trying to replace Bengali script into Meitei Mayek as a as state policy. With the transformation of Meitei Mayek script from Bengali script, many students have passed out BA and MA with Meitei Mayek script, he added.

He raised the issue that the students who passed out with Meitei Mayek script in BA and MA are not able to appear the UPSC examination as Manipuri optional papers are still in Bengali script.

The students had made a demand to allow them to write Meitei Mayek script while appearing UPSC examination in optional papers.

The demand of the students are legitimate and has been a major issue for the students of Manipur, the MP said.

He appealed the House to change the instruction of the optional papers as “answer must be written in Manipuri (Bengali or Meitei script) only” instead of the current instruction which read as “answer must be written in Manipuri (Bengali script)”.

He also appealed to allow the UPSC aspirants to allow to appear the examination of optional papers both in Bengali and Meitei Mayek scripts.