Guwahati, March 11: The Sonowals in four districts of Upper Assam are coming forward to learn Bodo language in a move to trace their roots and give a boost to the spread of the language.

The president of Bodo Sahitya Sabha, Kameswar Brahma, today told reporters that the process of teaching Bodo language to the Sonowal-Kacharis would be done with financial support of the Sonowal Kachari Autonomous Council and the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).

The general secretary of the literary body, Kamalakanta Mooshahary, said linguistically, Bodos and Sonowals belonged to the same Kachari family.

According to the 1881 census, there were 18 groups within the Kachari classification.

“The financial support will come both from the Sonowal Kachari Autonomous Council and the BTC,” said Brahma.

The literary body has already formed a committee to work on the process, which will cover Sivasagar, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts, where most of the Sonowal Kacharis live.

Brahma said the process of setting up the Bodo language teaching centres would be completed within a few months in these four districts.

He said while the centres would help common people of the Sonowal Kachari community to learn Bodo, the students of the community would learn the language as a subject in lower primary schools.

The development has been seen as a boost to the Bodo language at a time when the literary body members are working hard to spread not only in the state but also in West Bengal, Nepal and Bangladesh.

A team of the literary body will visit Bangladesh in July to find out the ways of teaching the language among the people of Bodo linguistic family.

The literary body, on the other hand, blamed the Assam government for its “lackadaisical” attitude towards Bodo language.

Brahma said despite their prolong demand, the state government had failed to set up a separate directorate for Bodo language.

“In the 2011 budget session, chief minister Tarun Gogoi announced a separate directorate for Bodo and other languages of different indigenous communities in the state. But no action has been taken till date,” he said.

The literary body demanded the state government to rectify some provisions of the Assam Venture Educational Institutions (Provincialisation of Services) Act, 2011, which have gone against the Bodo language.

It said if the state government did not rectify these provisions within this budget session, members of the Sabha would publicly burn it in front of the India Gate in New Delhi as part of their protest.

The Sabha also demanded the state government to hold the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) separately for Bodoland Territorial Areas District (BTAD) areas.

It demanded that pass percentage of TET be brought down from 55 per cent to 45 per cent for the candidates of Bodo and other indigenous communities considering their poor performance in the recently held examination.