Tiprasa or Borok

     The Root of the 'BOROK' word is found in some historical and religious text. It  derived from the word 'BOD'. A group of Indo-Mongoloid people used to call themselves as 'BOD' to identify their Racial or Ethnicity in ancient times, like the Arya or Dravida. In the course of time this group divided into many subgroups and spread all over India. Though they brunched into different ethnic groups, they still identify  racially as 'BOD', where as regionally or sub-nationally to their own state or language. But in the course of time this Bod word had changed as their speech also transformed into different identity. So the Tibetan call them selves as Bod, the Ladhaki as Bode, the Bhotia as Bhot, the Boro as Bodo, the Tripuri as Borok.

So Borok is not Tiprsa or Tripuri specific sub-national identity, but a racial identity like the Aryan or Dravidian. The Boro- word is changed to Boro-k in Tripuri languages, as the K letter is suffixed in most of Bodo word, so it became to Borok. Like Dou/Tou (bird) in Bodo, Tok in Tripuri, Dw/Tw (pot) in Bodo, Twk in Tripuri. What the Tripuri call Borok is same as Bod of Tibetan, Bodo of Boro, and Bhot of Bhotia. This type of variation are bound to happen, like the Bengali pronunciation of Arya becomes  Arjo.

 The Bod, Bodo or Borok word is equivalent to Dravidian or Aryan. The Dravidian descendants are like Tamil, Telegu, Kannada etc, similarly the Aryan descendants are like Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi etc, and the Boro or Borok descendants are the Tibetan, Ladhaki, Bodo, Tripuri, Kachari etc. Hence our identity is Not Borok but Tipra/Tripuri.

We must realize who are going to be alienated and who are going to be legitimated by the use of word Borok. It means that no one is native of Tripura, no one is indigenous of Tripura all are alien to this land. To say you native you have to express every time confront. Then who are going to be alienated and who are going to be legitimated by the use of word Tripuri. It means Tripuri are the native people of Tripura, rest are all migrants or later entrant. What are the hidden forces behind motivating us to use the The word Tripura has at least Twelve Meanings: 1) The name of Ancient State. 2) The Race who are the native inhabitant of said state. 3) The name of the Languages they speak. 4) Sub-caste which ruled the state. 5) Name of the King, Tripura, who became legend 6) The Era of the state is known as Tripura Era. 7) The Deity is known as Tripura Ama or Tripura Sundari. 8) The Dynasty that ruled is known as Tripura till it came to be known as Manikya. 9) Tripura is a Surname of a Sub-tribe who are also known as new Tripura. 10) Tripura is name of Castle in Kolkata and in Shillong. 11) Name of the religion which is practiced by its people as Lt. Sh. Alindra Lal Tripura defined in his religious books as 'Traipur Samhita' or Tripura religion.   12) It also indicate a District in present Bangladesh during British period, as it was once part of Tripura  kingdom.

It is synonymous with our states name, so Tripuri word itself simply identifies with the state and it implies that they are the original Native of Tripura state, no further expression or explanation required for that.

 Some express that Tripuri is only a sub-tribe, means only to Debbarma and Borok is all embracing, it is not true. First if all borok is a misnomer for Tripuri. We are misguided by the crooked people who do not want us to take the right to use the identity of our Native land so that we are alienated in our native land. The Kings who ruled the state used to identify us as “Pancha Tripura” or Five Tripuris, meaning by five native Tripuri people that are viz. Old Tripura, New Tripura, Jamatia, Riang and Halams. All the historian historians termed us as Tripuri/Tipra. Out side of Tripura, no one know us whether Debbarma are only Tripuri, for them all the native are Tripuri.

 Some critics do argue that it is a Sanskrit word so we should not be identified by foreign word, rather we should use our own Tripuri word-Borok. It is to be noted that the world over most of the nationality are not known what they themselves, but what in what name the world or the neighbour address them. For example German call them selves as Deutche, the Japanese identify as themselves Nippon, China identify as Zhonghou, Italy as Italia, India as Bharat, the Bengali them selves call as Bangali, Manipuri them selves identify as Meithei and the list goes on. The first name are neither their own word nor they call them selves but they are known as it is. So there should not be any narrowness or we should be so phobia about Tripuri words origin from Sanskrit.

Where Tripura word is phonetically changed version of Tipra, the word like Naga is not connected with any indigenous word purely a Sanskrit word, still the Nagas do not seems have any allergy to this word, then why Tripuri people be so much allergic to the Sanskrit form of its Identity?

Some people argue that since our most of daily necessity are identified with -borok suffix we should identify as Borok. This logic is not tenable. If we look in detail we find that -borok suffix do not specifies Tripuri people exclusively. For example khaklu-borok, a kind of white gourd grown in jhum, it is will be called so even if it may be brought from Nagas, similarly all the traditional chicken are called Tok-borok though it may be bought from Manipuri or Bengali. So the word borok basically signify indigenous or native, it does not mean Tripuri people.

 Invisible hands want that we become refugee in our ancestor land. Why should we do what the opponents want us to?  We must remember that what we have taken the name is not of a name of tribe but of the mother state, of our ancestors’ state, we must know that the name of tribes became Tripuri because they belong to this state not vice versa.

If we say that Borok is out national/sub-national  identity than what is our racial/sub-racial identity, equivalent to Dravidian or Aryan? Confused or got lost!

What is the answer to this question as per the standard norms is like this, racially we belong to Mongoloid races Tibeto-Burman group or Borok/Bodo ethnics race, sub nationality wise Tripuri. We can trace our racially like this, Mongoloid>Tibeto-Burman>Borok/Bodo>Tripuri. That means Tripuri is sub-national or regional identity and borok is racial identity like Dravidian, Aryan etc.