[Assam] Crybaby

[kamal deka]

    *Land of whiners
— Arup Kumar Dutta**A*s whiners we folks of Assam have no competition. No
doubt we have plenty to whine about. The indifference of the Central
Government, the lack of job opportunities, the inability of Delhi to solve
the insurgency problem and restore peace to the region, the unresolved issue
of annual floods et al. Truly, there is no end to our grouses!

The latest of these is the inexplicable fact that the Election Commission
has scheduled Lok Sabha polls in this State smack in the middle of Rongali
Bihu festival. This has been due either to the fact that the Commission is
absolutely ignorant about the cultural life of the North-East, or that it
could not care less. Understandably, this Bihu is the most important
festival of Assam. Apart from reinforcing tradition, it also helps to
strengthen family and community bonds, with every household endeavouring to
get together at least once a year to celebrate an age-old festival.

That the Commission chose to ignore the emotive appeal of this festival has
rightly aroused indignation, with a section calling it yet another instance
of neglect and indifference of the Centre. The possibility that thousands of
Assamese will miss the festival this year appears to be of no concern to the
Commission. Though political parties as one have protested and requested the
Commission to change the poll dates, there is no indication so far that such
a change is being envisaged. If the Commission ignores the protests and
sticks to the announced schedule, it would only serve to underline the
whiners’ accusations of indifference!

However, of late we have taken to whining so much that our own shortcomings
seem to have taken a back-seat! That the exploited is as much to blame as
the exploiter is a reality that cannot be ignored. If today the Assamese
identity is under threat, Assamese politicians are as much to be blamed as
those of Delhi. If Bangladeshis have inundated the land, Assamese
businessmen and contractors are as much to blame as the migrants. If
Assamese culture has suffered degeneration, a smug and self-serving Assamese
middle class is as much to blame as anyone else. If the new urban generation
is losing touch with our language and culture, it is the elders who are
culpable. If bright young minds are leaving in large numbers for educational
institutions outside the state, it is our intellectuals and academicians who
to a large extent are responsible.

The true worth of any community is the manner in which it tussles against
adversity and turns it into prosperity. Though I have no love lost for
Israel, I have always held the Jews as a supreme example of this. This
religious community had suffered untold persecution in Europe since ancient
days. Held in contempt as an effeminate trading race, the nadir in their
destiny had come in the form of the holocaust in the Hitler era. Yet today
the same Jews have been transformed into a militant race, having turned the
legacy of their adversity into a positively charged future.

But not us, the whining Assamese! It has been the other way for us – a
downslide from the legacy of Saraighat and the reputation of Assamese
soldiers as being unbeatable in war, to the pathetic whiners that we have
become today. The Generals we have in Dispur are a travesty of the likes of
Lachit. They roar like tigers at home, but meow like tame cats in Delhi. Our
bureaucrats, with some rare exceptions, area bunch of incompetents, more
keen to feather their own nests than take the state towards development.

Not only are we whiners, we Assamese have become masters at destroying
whatever worthwhile we had. The benighted city of Guwahati is the best
example of this. Blessed with green and mountainous surroundings, with a
mammoth river cutting through it, Guwahati could have been developed as the
Paris of the North-East. Instead, we have converted it into the Dharavi of
the North-East. From a once naturally beautiful township we have reduced it
to the dirty, dusty, stinkinp, garbage dump it is today.

The problem with things like this is we cannot blame the Centre for it!
Delhi has been relatively generous in dispensing money to the State. If much
of the given amount goes back unspent, or find its way into undeserving
pockets, it is Assamese politicians and bureaucrats who are responsible. Had
we the will and the enterprise, there are a million steps we could have
taken to better the quality of life in this region. Yet we have chosen to
sit on our backsides doing nothing, putting out our begging bowl towards
Delhi even as we whine away.

For instance, Assam today has become an ethnologically and culturally
fractured State, with the tiniest of communities forsaking the common
Assamese identity and asserting its individuality, thereby falling into the
divide and rule trap that the powers that be in Delhi are forever devising.
Yet, till just a few decades ago, we were all a part of the pan Assamese
mosaic, a pattern that had been slowly building through centuries. The
apotheosis of this broader identity had been all too visible during the
mass-movement against influx of foreigners, when almost every true blue
Assamese, no matter from which part of the State or what background, had
embarked on a unified struggle to rid the region from a menacing scourge.

It has taken just a couple of decades to shatter that unique bond of oneness
forged through centuries. Surely, it is not the forces inimical to the
interests of Assam who are solely to be blamed for this state of affairs?
What has been the role of our so called national institutions which had been
invested with the task of keeping the bonds strong? We, particularly the
Assamese middle-class, need to introspect about what has gone wrong and
rectify the shortcomings we ourselves had displayed.

No doubt others have taken advantage of our past innocence and equable
temperament to exploit our resources and keep the region underdeveloped,
thereby sowing the seeds of insurgency and consequent violence. But, even
under existing constraints, we could have done much better in
socio-cultural, political and economic spheres. We too are guilty of
squandering our resources, misusing Nature’s munificence, indulging in
fissiparous games of one-up-man-ship. Above all, we are guilty of not
sacrificing enough for the land of our birth and giving up selfish pursuits
for the common good.

Incessant whining has not changed things for the better. It is high time
indeed that we change our ethos as well as approach if we are to aspire for
a brighter future.