Understanding the Assamese

For most people across the country, the idea of an Assamese is very funny, and at times even disappointing and deplorable. Long ago, in the second decade of the Nineteenth century, a Professor in a prestigious college in Kolkata, while delivering a lecture in a class, suddenly remarked that the Assamese were a ‘junglee’ people. While the majority of the students laughed, one student stood up, and boldly said – Sir, you either withdraw your statement or prove it here and now. The Professor, who was initially taken aback at the student’s demand, however, withdrew his statement and left the classroom without proceeding further. The student was none other than Benudhar Sarma, a very eminent scholar and author, who, among others, had documented the life and works of Maniram Dewan, and went on to become president of Axam Xahitya Xabha, apart from winning the Sahitya Akademi award. A similar incident had happened with Satyendra Nath Barkataki, an eminent author and most efficient civil servant too. He was in an all-India conference in the national capital, when a fellow officer from another state looked at him and remarked – So, Assamese people wear suits too! “No, we don’t wear anything at all. As I return home I will get down at the railway station, remove my cloths and run into the jungles!” – Barkataki reportedly replied. Mahatma Gandhi too had suffered from the same problem. Such was his idea about this state and her people that he once wrote an article in Hind Swaraj in which he passed certain very unsavoury remarks about the people of Assam. This caused a lot of resentment in Assam, with several Congress leaders writing to him to correct his perception. A couple of years later, when he came on his first visit to the province, he wrote an article called ‘Experience of Assam’ in which he called himself ignorant and wrote – “I came to hear the name of Assam simply while I was reading in English. Since then, I had the impression that the people of Assam were uncivilized and backward. Therefore, I called the people of Assam uncivilized in Hind Swaraj. This hurt the Assamese. Can the Assamese have the feelings of affection towards that ignorant person who called them uncivilized? …Is it possible to be angry with the man who is really ignorant? Yet, I got an opportunity to beg an apology. When I admitted my mistake and begged an apology, people began to laugh. They did not want me to beg an apology. Who can call the Assamese uncivilized? Whoever calls them so, will be as uncivilized as I am.” It has been more than seven decades that Gandhiji had left this world. But, for a sizeable section of people outside the region – and many of them are active in public life – the perception has not changed much. This has been so not only with the Assamese, but with most communities of the North-eastern region. There have been stories about chief ministers of some states of the region who were asked to produce their passport and visa while checking in at airports and hotels. And there have been stories of newspaper editors based in the national capital asking their Guwahati-based reporters to go to Itanagar in the morning, to Aizawl in the afternoon and than to Shillong in the evening. And then, there are people who think the Assamese and other people of the region are largely separatists and want to break away from India, notwithstanding the fact the people of Assam in particular have been struggling, since the time of the Grouping Plan and creation of Pakistan, to remain an integral part of this great country.

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