Bengalis in Assam are Bhumiputras
The transition of ‘Bongal’, ‘Bohiragata’, ‘Bideshi’ and ‘Bangladeshi’ in the socio-political scenario of Assam from the last few decades has jeopardized the development of the state and the country. The dreaded viral engulfed the society faster than any communicable disease, resulting in the birth of excruciating situation for the Bengalis and other small communities of Assam. To meet out their vested interests, a section of elite Assamese luminaries created favourable and fabricated history and reached out to the mass with their message in such a manner that the innocent people were emotionally convinced by their logical philosophy. This write up is an effort to analyse the status of Bengalis in Assam, based on authentic facts and figures.
In ancient time, the language in which books were written was known as ‘ Desh Bhasha .’ Thereafter came the ‘Sankari Bhasha ‘ or ‘ Eksharan Dharma ‘ or ‘ Kshatriya Bhasha .’ From 1846 to 1883 was the period of ‘Arunodoy’ and Sibsagar was the capital of Assam. The language of that region got mixed up with the ‘ Bongo Kamrupi ‘ and other local languages of various communities. At the initiative of the Baptist Missionaries the language in which they published their journal, ‘Arunodoy ‘ became the Assamese language and the people of various communities who accepted that language were regarded as ‘ Assamese .’ So, an inference can be drawn that the Assamese race took birth based on Assamese language and the people who composed this race belonged to various caste, creed, community and language groups of Assam. Now, if we carefully observe the language used in Arunodoy, the readers can easily make out the similarities and dissimilarities of Assamese and Bengali language. In the January issue of Arunodoy, dated 1946, an article named ‘ Kanir Biboron ‘ was published, where the words used were slightly different in spelling and pronunciation from the Bengali words.
Within a span of 11 years ( 1846 – 1857 ), Assamese language managed to develop its individual identity. The present day Assamese language is the modified form of ‘ Arunodoy ‘ period. But one can easily ascertain that both Assamese and Bengali language bears a very close tie among themselves; and probably this closeness is the root cause of fear and agony, identity crisis among a section of Assamese society. The agitating section knows it very well that Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee launched the movement for National Education in 1918 with the mission to make all the major national languages as the true vehicle of knowledge. On request of Sir Mukherjee, Late Hem Chandra Goswami compiled his famous book ‘ Asomia Sahitter Chinaki ‘ which was published by the Calcutta University. It is due to the tireless efforts of Ashutosh Mukherjee, Assamese language was introduced at the Post Graduate level of studies, from the thirties, in Calcutta University. A number of renowned, educationists of Assam were associated with that department. Today, the Assamese literature and culture has reached to such a height that it has crossed the Regional, National boundaries and reached the International platforms. Had it been possible without the help and participation of Bengali educationists, literati and linguistic legends? It is not understood even after all such friendly association and help, how the Bengalis can be accused of conspiring against the Assamese language.
In a paper read in the seminar on ‘ Assam Problems and their solution ‘ organized by Calcutta University Students Union, on 23rd April 1980, Dr. Hiren Gohain stated, “ As for the alleged threat to cultural identity, one feels that it will be very difficult if not impossible for the threat to become a reality. The example of Tripura is misleading because unlike the Tripuri, the Assamese had developed a modern national culture already in the second half of the 19th century. They had successfully resisted the British Colonial Authorities’ plan to merge Assam into a Muslim dominated state in the late forties. The State Reorganisation Commission confirmed Assamese domination over practically the whole of the North–East. The Assamese succeeded in making Assamese the official language of the State in 1961. It is now one of the few languages recognized as one of the official languages in the Constitution. The current accounts of the plight and peril of the Assamese are silent on such significant achievements and go on to express doubts about the loyalty of various non-Assamese groups to the latter’s discomfiture and mortification. It may therefore be said without equivocation that at the present stage of development Assamese is quite unlikely to suffer eclipse as a language – even if the Assamese were to become the language of a minority by some quaint twist of events.” But today the role played by Dr.Hiren Gohain is not only disheartening but self-contradictory with a vested interest.
Saudullah, at the instigation of the British, conspiracy of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Muslim League, tried his level best to transfer and attach the whole of Assam with Pakistan. At that juncture, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the President of Indian National Congress, raised strong objection and rushed to Assam to save it from the clutches of Pakistan. His able leadership and political farsightedness poured cold water on the evil ploy of Saudullah, Muslim League and their associates and selected Late Gopinath Bordoloi, the then leader of the opposition, as the Prime Minister of Assam. Inspite of rendering such a bold and selfless service to the people of Assam, Netaji and his community of people are looked down with a suspicious eye, as foster brothers and sisters in Assam. They spare no chance in making public remarks that ‘ Bengalis should be turned away from Assam, as they are interested in naming their clubs, organizations after the names of Netaji, Rabindranath, Vivekananda, and other Bengali legendaries.’ My humble question to these personalities who make those derogatory remarks publicly – Is Netaji, Rabindranath, Vivekananda and others not Indians? Have they not sacrificed their lives for the county? Have they not made us proud?
The forefathers of Mahapurush Sankardev, the founder of ‘ Kshatriya Sanskriti ‘ came from Kannauj to Gaur Desh. Staying at Gaur Desh for a few generations, they moved to Kamtapur. It is to be noted that, ‘ Gaur ‘ was the ancient name of a part of the modern Sylhet district and during that time there was no place named Assam, a large portion of the present Assam was within the jurisdiction of Kamtapur. The king of Gaur, Dharma Narayan, who styled himself Gaureswar – Lord of Gaur, sent seven families of Brahmins and seven families of Kayasthas to the Raja of Kamtapur, Durlab Narayan, on his request to settle down permanently at Kamtapur.
The heads of the seven Brahmin families were : (1) Krishna Pandit (2) Raghupati (3) Rambor (4) Lohar (5) Boyan (6) Dharam (7) Mathura.
The heads of seven Kayastha families were : (1) Srihari (2) Sripati (3) Sridhar (4) Chidananda (5) Sadananda (6) Harihor (7) Chandibar.
Chandibar Bhuiya was the ablest among the Kayasthas. In the subsequent time, Chandibar settled down at Bardowa in Nowgaon, where his grandson Sankar Dev was born to mother – Satyasandhya and father – Kusumbar Bhuiya. It can be presumed that before the arrival of these 14 families in Kamtapur no residents of Brahmins and Kayasthas were present in Kamtapur. Had they been there from before the question of inviting and bringing them from Gaur for permanent settlement does not arise. In due course of time, near and dear ones, friends and distant relatives of these 14 families definitely followed their footsteps and migrated to Assam to settle permanently.
Sarbabhom Bhattacherjee in his book “Padma Puran” stated the names of some of the disciples of Sankar Dev, they are Bidyapith Bhattacherjee, Raghab Bhattacherjee, Bhudhar Basudev, Srikanta Mahadev, Ramchandra, Krishnakanta, Bishnu Narayan, Jamini Dev, Jonardan Dev, Kalidas, Harihar, Surya Dhar, Chandra Dhar, Sri Dam, Surya Sarma, Dibakar, Ratneshwar, etc.
The names of the disciples of Sankar Dev found so far, clearly indicates that a huge number of people came from East Pakistan and settled down permanently. As in ancient time, from the very name of a person, one could understand the background of his family, the community and the language group to which he belonged, which is not so in modern times. Now it is up to the readers to ascertain the identities of Sankar Dev’s disciples.
Madhab Dev was a close associate of Sankar Dev. Govinda Bhuiya, the father of Madhab Dev was a close friend of Sankar Dev’s father. He came to Assam from village Banduka of Rangpur, Bangladesh. ‘ Mahapurushia ‘ or ‘ Kshatriya Sanskriti ‘ spread over with fame and name under the guidance and leadership of its founder Sankar Dev and Madhab Dev. Based on their principles and philosophy, ‘ Asomia Sanskriti ‘ took birth. It will not be wrong to comment that the ‘ lifeline ‘ of Asomia Sanskriti were the people of various communities and languages.
Bijoy Sen of Bengal defeated the King of Narak Dynasty and captured Kamrupa of Pragjyotispur and Sen Dynasty ruled over a period of 100 years. After the Sen Dynasty, Kamrupa was ruled by the Pala Kings of Bengal. In 1142 A.D., the Bengali Brahmin Minister, Baidya Dev, became the King of Kamrupa. During the rule of Sen, Pal and Baidya Dev dynasties, huge number of people from Bengal came to Kamrupa and adjoining areas of Assam.
Ahom King, Rudra Singha (1696 – 1714 ), on the advice of Padmanath Baidya Bakshi brought Krishnaram Bhattacherjee and his brother Kalicharan Bhattacherjee from Nabadwip, Bengal with great honour to look after the religious activities of Kamakhaya and other Temples. Receiving land and other amenities from the kingdom, Krishnaram, Kalicharan, their disciples, friends and relatives settled down in Kamakhya and other religious spots of Assam. Krishnaram was honoured with the title of ‘ Rajguru ‘ and became famous as ‘Parbatia Gosai .’ The followers of Parbatia Gosai got their new identities of life through the process of ‘Asom Khel System’ during the Ahom rule. Bengalis and other language groups used to acquire new surnames through this khel system. The kings used to confer titles to his people depending on their individual profession. People used to accept the gift of surnames and relinquish the traditional family surnames, thereby having a new identity.
Raja Rudra Singha brought a mason named Ghanashyam from Cooch Bihar to construct a house in the capital Rangpur. Ghanashyam and his associates stayed permanently at Rangpur after the completion of the assigned work and thereby accepted the surname “Khanikar” given by the King. Rudra Singh not only brought Bengali Brahmins with due honour but also brought singers, dancers, lyricists, writers and luminaries of various fields.
Raja Lakshmi Singha (1769 – 1780), brought a Bengali religious cult along with his followers and disciples and made him the “Rajguru”, who became famous as “No-Gossai.” Similarly, Raja Gaurinath Singha (1780 – 1795), Raja Kamalesh Singha (1795 – 1811), Raja Purandar Singha (1811 – 1819), encouraged and brought Bengali experts of various fields and accepted their help, services in the governance of their respective dynasties.
David Scott served the East India Company in various capacities in the northern and eastern frontiers of the Bengal Presidency from 1804 to 1831. Scott had been trying for the development of the silk industry of Assam since 1826. He took keen interest during his entire career to develop the silk industry and in this regard, he made arrangement through which experts from Bengal in Silk and Textile were engaged to train up the interested Assamese people and provide them with practical experience on modern devices for manufacturing raw silk. He introduced from Rangpur (Bengal) reelers, reels and plants of the Morus alba and established a factory at Darrang with the object of extending the cultivation of the pat or mulberry-reared silkworm, and of improving the reeling of the muga worm, thereby enhancing the silk industry of Assam. Naturally, these people who were brought from Bengal being assigned the job of developing the silk industry of Assam, settled down permanently in Assam. Question arises, how come these people, who are mainly Bengalis of Bengal all of a sudden became a foreigner or an alien to the land to which they toiled their sweat, developed and trained the people in the production of silk and brought a revolution in the silk industry of Assam along with the local people through collective tireless efforts, sincerity and dedication.
David Scott felt the necessity of bringing a change in the education system of Assam. He realized that the Assamese people needed to lay stress on manual skill enhancing practical education. As early as in 1826, he requested the Supreme Government to sanction considerable land grants to the pundits, whose expertise would be utilized in reviving the education system of Assam. He proposed for 1800 bighas of land for the support of pundits or schoolmasters in Lower Assam. The places selected for these schools were – Gauhati, Nilachal, Naduar, Patee Darrang, Hajo, Bajali, Seela, Biswanath, Nowgong and Desh Darrang (Mangaldai). The medium of language was Bengali, as Scott believed that ‘ its difference with Assamese is very negligible and it was well suited to the administrative needs. In any case it was already the language of the Assamese Intelligentsia.’ Another reason for the introduction of Bengali was that the intelligentsia of the Assam during that time had their higher education in Bengal, so, they were already versed in Bengali. Jugyuram Phukan’s translation of English prose and poetry into Bengali had already caught the eye of the intelligentsia of Bengal and the ‘literary exertions’ of Haliram Dhekial Phukan, who had written a history of Assam in Bengali, had already been highly acclaimed by the Bengali Press.
With the arrival of East India Co. in Assam, they recruited huge number of Bengalis to manage and look after the Company’s activities. In 1853 A.D. innumerable labourers were brought from Bengal and employed in the tea gardens of Assam. The movement of labourers from Bengal was so huge that Bengal faced the scarcity of labourers for their own works. As a result, influx of labourers from other places of India to Assam started. In the census report of 1921, one-sixth part of the total population of Assam was tea garden labourers, out of which the Bengali labour population was one-eighth of the total population.
The Mission School of Gauhati established in 1830 A.D. had its medium of instructions both English and Bengali. After the British invaded Assam, they realized that Assam is unable to provide English knowing personnel to carry out the administrative works and the situation lasted for three generations. In their search for a common language acceptable to all sections of people to smoothly carry on with their official works, they found Bengali is the language that will serve their purpose and decided to implement it as the official language of Assam in 1836 A.D.
All the activities of Scott’s establishment were looked after by three Amlas, namely, Rajkishore Sen, Hari Shome and Kishenkant Bose. As a matter of fact, prior to the permanent arrangement of May 1825, Scott had already provisionally appointed many people in the native establishment of Commissioner’s Office in Lower Assam. The posts were filled by people having surnames – Ghose, Sen, Mukherjee, Chakravarti, Nag, Nandi, Dutta, Bagchi, Gupta, Ghosal, Pal, Ray, etc. They were Bengalis undoubtedly.
In his entire period of service, Scott badly felt the shortage of Assamese who knew the Company’s system of governance. In 1829, Haliram Dekhial Phukan, then the Revenue Seristadar of Lower Assam, published a book on Assam titled ‘Assam Buranji’ in Bengali. The book was distributed in Bengal free of cost. The motive behind such an act was to make the Bengalis of Bengal aware of Assam so that they become interested to migrate to Assam and settle there with Company’s job. The book was an open invitation to the people of Bengal to settle in Assam. The second edition of the book was published from Gauhati in June 1962, and edited by J.M.Bhattacharya.
On the strength of the above mentioned facts, it can be said without any hesitation that the presence of Bengalis along with their language, culture and literature in Assam was a long way before the arrival of British in Assam. Had the Bengalis been new entrants having no ancient history of their presence in Assam, it would have been just impossible for the language to have such widespread acceptability and popularity in the state. At the same time, it can be advocated strongly that the Bengalis always stood by the Assamese and people of other communities of Assam and extended all sorts of help required socially-politically-culturally-literarily-spiritually, etc. in developing the present state of Assam. Since Assam is a multilingual and religious state, so it has developed and reached its present state from the past through sincere, tireless effort and commitment of all sections of people, including the Bengalis.
The conclusion may be drawn that the Bengalis of Assam are very much ‘sons of the soil’ and more indigenous than the claimants who have raised the unchecked hue and cry. However, the State and Central Governments cannot escape the responsibility of tackling this problem by defining and identifying properly the ‘Sons of the Soil’ and ‘Indigenous’ theory, as these terms are eating up the vitals of the country.
