[Assam] Who is the Sentinel of Freedom?

Sun Aug 19 12:42:32 PDT 2007

--- SANDIP DUTTA <pseude at yahoo.com> wrote:

> What you wrote is quite true..but I have heard now
> that in many districts since they have the numbers,
> they are registering as Bengali again.
> 
> So now what....?

hi sandip, thanks for your reply.  it is actually the
same old, same old.  and please accept my apologies
for a delayed reply.  

the assamese language did not spread via a hegemony of
the assamese people.  it spread mainly via the market
place.  and without even the "assamese" people
knowing, people were talking in one version or the
other in nagaland (nagamese) and arunachal pradesh
(arunamese).  arunamese is gone, replaced by hindi. 
nagamese is not replaced by hindi yet.  

from anecdotal evidence, a bengali tailor and a bihari
laborer in the streets of guwahati still talk with
each other in assamese.  assamese is neither the
language of the bengali nor the language of the
bihari.  it is a neutral language.  and that is
precisely how the language spread for the last few
hundred years.  the language survives today mainly
because it is still a language of the market place. 
not because of its literary output or anything.  ask
any assamese writer.  he will tell you he is lucky if
he sells a few thousand copies of his novel or poems. 
ask assamese film producers.  hardly anyone went out
to watch assamese movies.  even before the ulfa ban.

and when the language became a language championed by
some who tried to force it into schools and offices,
it lost its neutral tag.  and since then there has
been problems.  without a doubt, the assamese will
never force their language into anyone's living room.

but maybe, maybe, if more assamese poems are written
of a future with room for lovers and romantics---who
knows, the language might reach their bedrooms...

x

> 
> Rgds,
> Sandip
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: xourov pathok <xourov at yahoo.com>
> To: "Roy, Santanu" <sroy at mail.smu.edu>;
> assam at assamnet.org; Dilip/Dil Deka
> <dilipdeka at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 5:27:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Assam] Who is the Sentinel of Freedom?
> 
> 
> --- "Roy, Santanu" <sroy at mail.smu.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> > 
> > And then all this talk about Bangladeshi versus
> > Indian migration. If
> > Bongals had not filled up the land, 
> 
> bongals.
> 
> by using the word bongals, i guess you are referring
> to the anti-bengali feelings in assam.  you might
> recall that that word has a history.  in days past,
> before the british came along, bongal was used to
> refer to foreigners. specifically, the turk and
> afghan
> rulers of bengal.  
> 
> then, after the demise of the ahom kingdom, the
> bengali babus, mostly hindus, came along and became
> the symbol of colonialism.  they too were called
> bongals, maybe to anoint them with the same
> abhorence
> of earlier times.  it was not the ahom rulers who
> used
> the word this time though. a different set of
> people---the newly emerging assamese middle class
> aspiring the jobs held by the bengali babus---used
> the
> word.  
> 
> but the bengali babus had come to assam much earlier
> than the muslim peasants.  and skipping much of
> history, we can say that the word bongal never much
> caught on for the muslim peasants.  i believe mainly
> because the assamese middle class did not quite
> aspire
> for the muslim peasants' job. 
> 
> social history is complex.  the muslim peasants
> mentioned assamese as their mother tongue in the
> census.  at least some of them.  and guess what,
> some
> of them have gone ahead formed the asam chor-chapori
> sahitya sabha.  if you have watched "angst at large"
> by shankar barua, he talks to a young assamese (a
> sarma, who i have met in delhi) who calls them
> na-asamiya.  by all indications, some of them have
> indeed taken to assamese.  whereas the assamese send
> their children to english schools today, some of
> these
> muslim peasants send their children to assamese
> schools.
> 
> this is also something i want the people to talk
> about, beyond the usual rhetoric.
> 
> some more later :-)
> 
> cheers,
> x
> 
> 
> > Counterfactual history is always dangerous. But
> > think about it for a
> > moment. If walls of fire were erected to prevent
> > people from coming to
> > Assam from East Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1947,
> the
> > Indian constitution
> > would not have defended the state from potential
> > migration that the
> > economic mechanism would have engineered instead
> > from mainland India.
> > The pace would be different. The fact that the
> poor
> > arid regions of
> > central and eastern India do not have the skills
> to
> > exploit wet areas
> > would have been a factor. In the long run,
> however,
> > the socio-economic
> > picture would probably not be very different. The
> > faces would have
> > looked different. Less of lungis, less Bengali,
> more
> > Hindi, more Hindu
> > possibly.   
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Then, what remains of the 1979 agitation? Perhaps,
> > an awareness of the
> > reality that just won't go away. A gnawing feeling
> > in the indigenous
> > soul that something has changed, something has
> been
> > lost - realized in
> > hard facts. For the urban dwellers, the veils have
> > been lifted. And as
> > the last thirt years have taught, the change is
> > irretrievable. The
> > politics of camouflage has been replaced by the
> > politics of ethnic
> > polarization. The middle class has learnt that
> > language. Even the
> > oxomiya bhdralok has.  
> > 
> > Santanu. 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: assam-bounces at assamnet.org
> > [mailto:assam-bounces at assamnet.org] On
> > Behalf Of xourov pathok
> > Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 10:17 AM
> > To: assam at assamnet.org; Dilip/Dil Deka
> > Subject: [Assam] Who is the Sentinel of Freedom?
> > 
> > > I can see you are trying to steer the discussion
> 
> > > to the same issues that you are so fond of and 
> > > have discussed here so many times - that India
> has
> > > totally failed and Assam will be better off by
> > > opting out of India.
> > 
> > dilip-da, that is c-da, not me.  could you show me
> > where i have argued assam is better off opting out
> > of
> > india?  the possibility of that happening is too
> > remote, imho, and there is not point in
> speculating
> > on
> > it.  it is not going to happen.  period.
> > 
> > i am trying to keep to the issue of immigration,
> and
> > not going on a tangent on freedom.  independence.
> > principles.  or thought experiments.  
> > 
> > i am trying to focus on the failure of the assam
> > agitation and what it means for assam.  also, i am
> > trying to focus on the mechanism how immigration
> is
> > happening.  what sustains it.  etc.
> > 
> > >  On your email below - All of your allegations
> are
> > >  valid, not always but in many instances. India
> is
> > >  still experimenting with democracy 
> >    [snipped]
> > 
> > i am not interested in the discussion on indian
> > democracy in the present context.  i am strongly
> > interested in the issue of democracy, of course. 
> > but
> > that is an entirely different issue.
> > 
> > x
> > 
> > 
> >        
> >
>
________________________________________________________________________
> > ____________
> > Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you
> > sell. 
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> > 
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> >
>
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> > 
> 
=== message truncated ===

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