Kokrajhar: FIR against Sanjay Hazarika, Romila Thapar for insulting Bodos

Kokrajhar: FIR against Sanjay Hazarika, Romila Thapar  for insulting Bodos
Our Correspondent

Kokrajhar: Expressing anguish over some objectionable words against the Bodo tribal community, the United Tribal Organization, Assam (UTOA) lodged an FIR against noted writer Sanjay Hazarika and Romila Thapar at Kokrajhar police station on August 3 to take necessary action against their books with hate comments.

In a press meet held at Kokrajhar Press Club, the president of the UTOA, Markush Basumatary said they were compelled to lodge the FIR against the two writers for the hate comments against the Bodo community in their books.

He said the indigenous Bodo community was deeply hurt by the use of specific phrases in the book Strangers no more : New narratives from India’s Northeast by Sanjay Hazarika under the chapter ‘Fear in a handful of dust’. He also involved cabinet minister Pramila Rani Brahma, accusing her of indirectly instigating violence in his book.

Hazarika made such remarks without any authentication, Basumatary said.

He added that renowned historian Romila Thapar also made an inaccurate statement in her book Ancient Indian Social History: Some interpretations in page 378. To quote her, “Few in India pause to count the number of militant groups, that are terrorizing areas of the sub-continent and are not concerned with matters of Islam ... The Bodo, the ULFA, a variety of groups in the north-east some of whom go back fifty years”.

“The inaccuracy in this sentence is that she has categorized Boro community as a militant group. Such misrepresentation of a whole community is unacceptable as it has the potential of stereotyping a community as criminal or militant in nature,” he said, adding, “We do not want readers to have misconception about the Bodo community as militant through use of such generalized insensitive words.”

The UTOA leader said writer Sanjay Hazarika was a local person and quite familiar with the tribes or communities of Assam, he should have never written statements like ‘Bodo use of explosive’ or ‘Bodo militants’ or ‘blood-spattered Bodo council’ at any cost.

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