Reang community reiterate demand for notification of annual ‘Songrongma Puja’ day as state holiday

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, July 30, 2025

The Reang community, second largest tribal community of Tripura, have reiterated their demand for notification of their annual ‘Songrongma Puja’ day that falls on the new moon day in the Bengali month of ‘Bhadra’ (August-September) as state holiday. In the year 2022 the then chief executive officer of ADC had addressed a letter to the state government on March 25 recommending the declaration of ‘Songrongma Puja’ day of the Reang tribal community as a state holiday but no decision has as yet been taken in this regard.

This demand was raised afresh today by the general secretary of the ‘Bru (Reang) Songrongma Mtho’, Khanaran Reang in a discussion with the chief minister Dr Manik Saha whom he had gone to meet with as part of a delegation of tribal ‘Samajpatis’ . The chief minister is stated to have assured Khanaram Reang of looking into the matter seriously and taking an appropriate decision as early as possible considering all other aspects of the issue.

Speaking to media persons Khanaram Reang whose head office is in Bir Chandra Manu area under Santir Bazar subdivision said that the Reang or Bru tribal community is the second largest tribal community of the state and 82% of them are Hindus . “Songrongma is our main deity and our annual puja is held on schedule and that is why we have raised this demand; hopefully the state government will take a positive decision in this regard” said Khanaram.

He said that Reang tribal community is still designated as a primitive group for extreme backwardness and in Mizoram also they form the second largest ethnic group but are subjected to all kinds of exploitation and deprivation because of their religious and ethnic identity. “In Mizoram it is very difficult even to preserve existence for the Reangs without conversion to Christianity; in 1997 more than 35 thousand Reangs had been forced to flee and take shelter in Tripura simply because of their ethnic and religious identity as Hindus ; without shelter in Tripura these people would have been no where today” said Khanaram. He asserted that the Reang or Bru people are keen to maintain and strengthen their culture , language and heritage and they seek governmental help for this.

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