Xahitya Xabha’s Challenges

 With the 77th biennial session of the Axam Xahitya Xabha taking off at Pathsala in west-ern Assam on Saturday, it is now another occasion for the people of Assam to look up to the pioneer literary body of the region for providing new directions to the language and literature of the state. Looking back, one finds that the Xabha was born in the backdrop of a massive threat to the very existence of the Assamese language from certain quarters, which had sought to project it as a corrupt form of Bengali. Fortunately for Assam, while stalwarts like Hemchandra Goswami, Lakshminath Bezbaroa, Padmanath Gohain Barua, and others gave shape to the Xabha way back in 1917, pioneering research work by Banikanta Kakati in the first half of the previous century established the fact that Assamese is an independent language with a long history. Scholars like SK Chatterjee also supported the cause of the Assamese language, only further strengthening its position. The Xahitya Xabha—whose nomenclature incidentally was not Axamiya, but Axam—was established not just to promote the Assamese language, with the founding fathers also having in mind the various other languages of the state and the region, which had played a key role in shaping and enriching Assamese. This was recently highlighted when the Government of Assam granted Classical Language status to the Assamese language, in the process also recognizing the fact that this language is more than 1500 years old, has an amazing continuity, a rich legacy and heritage, and is a vibrant language that is distinctly different from several other Indian languages of Indo-Aryan origin. There, however, came a time when the other languages of the state were pushed to the sidelines, which in turn created a situation leading to the formation of several literary bodies representing the other different indigenous languages spoken in Assam. Though a realisation had dawned within the Axam Xahitya Xabha much later, it caused some damage to the fabric of the ethnic unity of Assam. The brighter side is that the various Xahitya Xabhas representing different Indigenous languages of Assam today work in coordination, leading to the creation of a better environment on the language front. Assam, it must be always kept in mind, is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural landscape where organisations like Axam Xahitya Xabha should be able to hold a large umbrella, providing much-needed protection and assurance to all. The new Axam Xahitya Xabha president has already made certain very significant announcements regarding his plan of action for the next two years. Suggestions have already been made for floating a common platform of all the Xahitya Xabhas to work in cohesion for the development, promotion, and much-needed safeguard of all the indigenous languages, particularly in the backdrop of the fast-changing demography of the state caused by the unabated influx from across the southern international boundary.