The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that we must respect, preserve and propagate mother tongues, native and indigenous languages. He was addressing the gathering after inaugurating the Centenary Celebrations of the Assam Sahitya Sabha, here today.The Vice President quoted Mahatma Gandhi as saying, “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people”. He further said that similarly, literature not only encapsulates the fertile imagination of the writers and poets, but also reflects the realities of a society. It holds a mirror to the social mores, culture, ills and all that is good in a society, he added.The Vice President complimented the Sabha for having published more than 10,000 books since its formation and also for playing a key role in the publication of Assamese dictionary ‘Chandrakanta Abhidan’.The Vice President expressed happiness that Asam Sahitya Sabha has taken up the initiative to set up Assam Cultural University as an ambitious project to conduct studies on the cultural traits of various communities in India and South East Asia. He complimented the Sabha for working on ‘Encyclopedia of the Writers of Assam’ and ‘Encyclopedia of Tea & Tea Communities of Assam’.