Rupak G. Duarah
(jubailh55@gmail.com)
Nathan Brown and Eliza Brown left a lasting mark on Assam during the two decades they spent in the Brahmaputra Valley in the nineteenth century. Their stated purpose was Christian preaching. They began at Sadiya and later settled at Sivasagar. What Assamese readers value most today is the practical work that accompanied it: a systematic study of the language, school textbooks, a grammar, a New Testament, and the founding of Arunodoi in January 1846. Arunodoi was the first regular Assamese-language periodical. Brown edited it for several years and filled its pages with religion, science, and general news, illustrated by local engravers.
Nathan Brownor Asom Abhijan is Imran Hussain's Assamese rendering of selected chapters from The Whole World Kin, the 1890 memorial volume compiled by Elizabeth Whitney Brown after her parents' deaths. Hussain, executive editor of Prantik, confines himself to the Assam years of the American Baptist couple Nathan and Eliza Brown, roughly from 1836 to 1855. Drawing on diaries, letters, and contemporary accounts already gathered in the English book, he leaves aside most of the earlier Burma sojourn, the later Japan years, and a large share of the explicitly evangelical material, so that the translation reads as a close record of the couple's work in Assam rather than as a full missionary life. Hussain's translation is, therefore, a window onto primary sources rather than a full biography. It records journeys and station life, the printing house and village tours, observations of Ahom remnants and local customs, and the hardships of river travel and disease. In Assamese, the missionaries can be heard arguing that Assamese was a living vernacular-worthy of grammars and newspapers, and not a dialect of Bengali. That argument later fed the nineteenth-century movement that secured official recognition for the language.
The chapters collected here sketch the Brown family's life and work in mid-nineteenth-century Assam: Arambhanir Kam; Bibah; Iswarar Pratigya; Bostonor Pora Brahmadesholoi; Moulmenot; Poriwartan; Brahmaputraidi Ujanimuwa Jatra; Dharmaprasarokor Jiwan; Erapolia Habitoliya Thait Sankotor Majot; Swargor Samrajyakhon Enekuwai; Manuhor Soite Sa-Sinaki Howa; Bidhormir Akramon; Joypuroloi Sthanantor; Kolikataloi Jatra; Britrishna Aru Biroktikor Poribeshor Majot; Ashar Botora; Sivasagor Pukhurir Parot Jiwan Nirbah; Bate-pothe Dharmo Prasar; Habir Majedi Khojere; Egoraki Mohilar Abedon; Lorok Forok Rosit Dhori; Teolukor Kontakmoy Jatra; Missionarygorakir Pestoror Pod Grahon; Joruourawa Jiwanot Suryar Puhar; Matrisokolor Sabha; Ghoroloi Brahmonor Agamon; Poriyalor Bidyaloi; Nathan Brownor Brahmadesh Jatra; Sivasagart Cholera; and Seshbaror Babe Asomiyar Sewat.
As a compact Assamese source on how print, grammar, and periodical journalism took shape in the Brahmaputra Valley under British rule, the volume is of real value. It complements later scholarly histories of Arunodoi and the American Baptist mission without replacing them. For readers interested in the early modernisation of Assamese letters, Hussain's selection remains a convenient and readable book.
The book does not conceal the evangelical motive. The missionaries issued tracts critical of Hindu and Islamic practices and measured success in baptisms and church formation. Hussain's preface and selection acknowledge this while concentrating on the language-and-print record that outlasted the mission's religious aims. What remains is both the human detail of a mid-nineteenth-century frontier station and a reminder that modern Assamese prose, schoolbooks, and journalism have roots in the missionary press. This edition of Nathan Brownor Asom Abhijan restores to view the history of the Brown family, who devoted their lives to the benefit of Assam and its people. Sanjib Borah's thoughtful cover design lends the volume a quiet dignity, matched by the care given to its illustrations and printing. The book, spanning around 320 pages, has been published by Banalata, one of Guwahati's leading publishing houses, and is priced at Rs 350 only.