The Rongmei are one of the major indigenous communities and part of the Naga tribes of North-East India, a scheduled tribe under the Constitution of India.
Rongmei territory was conquered by the British in the nineteenth century. In 1891, they imposed a house tax on the people of Tamenglong. The Rongmei refused to pay any tax from 1891 to 1894. In response, C.L. Crawford, Assistant Political Agent of Manipur, used force to collect the tax from the Tamenglong hills in 1894. Four years of defiance by the Rongmei and its consequences aroused national consciousness among the Rongmei. Eventually, the Rongmei rebelled against British rule in the 1930s. This rebellion gave momentum to and garnered support for the vision of a Naga Raj.
The Ruanghiak script was reportedly created between 2006 and 2014 by Gaikhuanlong Gangmei, a retired clerk of BSI Shillong branch who also devised a new orthography in Latin script which is used in current BSI Rongmei Bible.
The script is being taught through a website and a Facebook page where an announcement indicates that the launching of the script was due to be held on 16th July, 2022 at the Conference Hall of the RBCC/RNBA Centre Church, Tarung, Imphal,Manipur, India.
From what we have heard, only a few literary circle members of Christian Rongmeis are using it.
This entry is what Wikipedia calls a “stub”–that is, we know very little, we’d like to know more, and we’d love to hear from anyone who can add to our sad little stub of knowledge.
