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The Assamese People: Beauty in Heterogeneity
By: R.S. Mooshahary

Clause 6 of the Assam Accord reads, “Constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards, as may be appropriate, shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.” Seemingly, the language is simple and it should not create any confusion in understanding it, but the Government of India has required the Assam Government to define the term “Assamese people” — for 22 years, it has eluded definition acceptable to the people of Assam. The result is that this clause, though of the moment, has remained etiolated in the backyard of Accord implementation all these years.

Shashi Tharoor, in his book, India — From Midnight To Millennium, quotes the 19th century Italian novelist, Massimo Taparelli d’Azeglio, who wrote famously when popular movement made an Italian nation out of the congeries of territories and statelets: “We have created Italy. Now all we need to do is create Italians.” Tharoor is now publishing a glossary of Indianness in his weekly column of a leading English daily in an attempt to define India — a country, he says, “that has 2000 castes and sub-castes, 22,000 languages and dialects, and 300 different ways of cooking the potato.’’.

The Treaty of Yandaboo created Assam in 1826 out of the disparate, diverse, and decadent principalities, and its demographic profile represents India in microcosm with the conglomeration of ethnicities, languages, religions, cultures and historical origins. Actually, the diversity of Assam is much more complex because it is in the crucible of demographic distortions caused by the presence of large migrant population not seen elsewhere. The State has had three divisions already owing to irreconcilable diversities and social conflicts. Still there are demands for further fragmentation making the State an ethnic volcano. In such a fluid and volatile situation, the crying need is to create a defining moment through a spirit of capacious accommodation, which is also the need for defining the “Assamese people”.

It is easy to define the inhabitants of a culturally and linguistically homogenous State — those in Tamil Nadu as Tamils, in Kerala as Malayalis, or in Orissa as Oriyas. However, in States like Sikkim or Tripura, the terms Sikkimese or Tripuri, though conveying the original inhabitants there, fall short of denoting the present population pattern where the Nepalese and Bengalis, the migrants in these respective States, have become dominant and control the levers of power. Similarly, the expression “Assamese people” in a contrasting way fails to convey the full content of a heterogeneous society — a singular society that can be defined only in the plural.

Prior to the British rule, the Kacharis, the Ahoms, the Koches and many other rulers held fort on their own rights in this region without subjugating themselves to any sovereign power. They were frequently at war with one another and, as often, made peace among themselves with the end objective of preserving their own identities and way of life in the midst of conflicting interests. Unlike the Kacharis, the Morans, the Chutiyas etc, the Ahoms were not the autochthons of this land. They came from the region of Siam in the upper reaches of Thailand and crossed over the Patkai hills in early 13th century. The Kacharis who were the most powerful rulers then and were pushed back by the invading Ahom warriors, called them Ha-Sam-ni, meaning ‘‘of the land of Sam or Siam’’ (‘‘Ha’’ in Bodo-Kachari means ‘‘land’’ and ‘‘Sam-ni’’ means ‘‘of the land of Sam or Siam). This in due course developed into Asomni… Ahomi… Ahom, adapting to the soft guttural diction of the Assamese language, which by then had become the region’s lingua franca patronized as it was by the Ahom royals on their conversion to Hinduism.

Of the many racial strains whose home the Northeast is, the Indo-Mongoloids are the single dominant group in the region. People from here are often mistaken as those belonging to China or Japan; and embarrassing, no doubt, it is for them, it also reflects the diversity and the ignorance thereof of our compatriots. I have faced this situation many a time, and every time it is the educated people who ask me if I am a foreigner. Once aboard a flight, the person sitting next to me, who was a top executive in a private concern, politely enquired from which land I was. I responded, a little mischievously, that I was from Bodoland! He obviously did not know where it was in the world, but did not bother me further.This happens within Assam too, as the racial mix here is like a delightful rainbow of equally fascinating colours spread across the State. Many a time I have been mistaken as someone else from outside Assam. Once at Kochi (Cochin) where I was working, I met a Union minister in his hotel. He was from Assam on a visit to Kerala with his wife. As I began to speak in Assamese, I saw a look of surprise on the lady’s face and she did actually ask me, much to her husband’s embarrassment, if I was really an Assamese! Adversely, not knowing Assamese may invite insult from the overzealous adherents betraying linguistic chauvinism. In 1985, I admitted my son in a Guwahati central school in the third standard. He did not know Assamese, having stayed all along in Kerala, and his mother being an outsider, English was the only language he could communicate in. For this, the Assamese teacher there, a lady, rudely mocked at him telling others that the boy was pretending not to know Assamese because he thought that he was from England. That was an unkind cut on the innocence of an eight-year old.

Amartya Sen in his treatise, Identity and Violence — The Illusion of Destiny, speaks against miniaturization of human beings by reducing him to a choiceless singularity, which leads to belittling of human identity. To drive home his point, Sen says wittily: “The same person can be, without any contradiction, an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long distance runner, a historian, a school teacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English).’’

Likewise, an Assamese is a person with multiple identities: he may be a tribal with high cheekbones and slanting eyes, with historical ancestry in the State; an animist or an agnostic; an adherent of equal opportunity regime; a peace activist who holds the view that corruption, exploitation and inefficiency are the real causes for militancy; someone who is averse to adventure but is married to spouse from outside; and whose heart pulsates with the fragrance of its flowers, the smell of its soil and the melody of its music. Yes, he may be all in one — a quintessential Assamese, a heterodox, tolerant and accommodating person — and to confine him into a singular identity will be an insult to his belonging, an indignity to his soul.

We have discussed, debated and disagreed on the issue of definition for more than two decades without result. Now the time has come for a consensus with an attitude of flexibility and spirit of accommodation. Let us not forget that human vocabulary is inadequate for defining things in black and white with mathematical precision. Is it possible to define the “Indian people” or the “Hindu religion” in words that will convey all its contents? We thus need to do the defining solely guided by the objectives, and not impeded by the shortcomings.

Let us agree to define the “Assamese people” as “those people of Assam whose languages, cultures, social practices and festivals originated/developed in the State and are exclusive to it, and who are ordinarily residents of the State in continuity of its historical heritage as distinct from others who are without these identities.” It may not be the best of definitions, but it will include all the ethnic groups who need to promote, preserve and protect their cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage before they are submerged by the increasing waves of migrant population. Let the Assam Government act affirmatively on this definition.

By the way, did any one define the Jammu and Kashmir people, which include Laddakis also, to get them the special status under Article 370?

(The writer is Chief Information Commissioner, Asom)