Assam

"As an integral part of the Republic of India, Assam is not conventionally thought of as a part of Southeast Asia, yet it shares many characteristics with the nations to the east and there is justification for including it with Southeast Asia when considering the role of tribal peoples. Like the nations of Southeast Asia, Assam has a minority of tribal mountaineers who differ in many ways from the lowland majority. As in much of Southeast Asia proper, the hill men live largely by swidden agriculture; they are fragmented into dozens of linguistic groups, and until the colonial period no political system based in the plains was able to extend its control consistently into the hills. Except for recent converts to Christianity, the hill men (like most of their cousins to the east) fall under that vague rubric of “animism” and are thus set off from their Hindu neighbors in the valley. And, as in other parts of Southeast Asia, lowlanders tend to look upon the hill people as naive and primitive rustics, while they are often seen in return as wily, sophisticated scoundrels."

"“The Musalman invasion of the Brahmaputra valley was repeated on several occasions during the next five centuries of Muslim rule over north India, but most of these expeditions ended in disaster and Islam failed to make any inroads into the valley.”"

"The Turuskas obtained annihilation on arriving in Kamarupa."

"The Ramayana and Mahabharata mentioned Assam as Pragjyotisa. According to the Mahabharata, at a site named Pandunath at the western end of Nilachal Hill, the Pandava brothers took a ceremonial bath in the Lauhitya River after their period of ajyatavas was over. They then worshipped goddess et ro to regain their lost kingdom (Bhuyan and Nayak 2010: 9). The Kalika Purana, composed in the tenth century CE, explained the meaning of Pragjyotisa, “Formerly Brahma staying here created the stars; so the city is called Pragjyotisapura, a city equal to the city of Indra” (Barua and Murthy 1988: 1). The Kalika Purana also stated that Naraka, son of the Varaha incarnation of Vishnu, established a township (puri) and subjugated Pragjyotisa, which was in the midst of Kamarupa. He subsequently brought priests (dvijas, Brahmins) and other people from northern India and settled them there. The Kalika Purana indicated that some Kirata kingdoms once existed in the region and Kamakhya was their deity. Naraka was said to have defeated the last Kirata king, Ghataka, and assumed custody of the Kamakhya yonimandala of Pragjyotisa (Bhuyan and Nayak 2010: 2-5, 10-11, 13-14)."

"E.A. Gait (1863-1950), who served as Assistant Commissioner of Assam and, from 1890 as Provincial Superintendent for the 1891 census in the region, linked the word Pragijyotisa to astrology. He stated, Prag means former or eastern and jyotisha a star, astrology, shining. Pragjyotishpur may, therefore, be taken to mean the City of Eastern Astrology. The name is interesting in connection with the reputation which the country has always held as a land of magic and incantation and with the view that it was in Assam that the Tantrik form of Hinduism originated (Gait 1906: 15)."

"Ibn Battuta, during his visit to the region, observed the commonness of spells, “the inhabitants of these mountains ... are noted for their devotion to and practice of magic and witchcraft” (Rehla 1953: 237-38)."

"Assam is going to become another Kashmir. Satras are in great danger because of aggression by a section of people. At the same time, the Hindus living in the tea belt and far-flung border areas of the state are also on the verge of extinction because of massive aggression…I urge upon the RSS karyakartas to go to the areas and consolidate Hindus to save the institutions from the danger. You can do it because you have a grassroot-level organization and strong bond with common people in remote areas. I request the Sangh to help the government in this direction."

"Men professing Islam had symbolic presence in lower Assam from the early 13th century to the end of the 15th century. The Ahom– Mughal relation entered a critical phase in the 17th century. There was no record of any Muslim settlement in the 16th century. After suffer- ing a serious setback, the Ahom king recovered western Assam from the Mughals in 1682. A fair chunk of Mughal soldiers and their camp followers preferred to stay back in the settled condition of life where they came as aggressors in batches. Obviously, they made a choice. This, I would like to argue, has to be understood in the backdrop of the agrarian crisis of the Mughal state and the civil war in the second half of the 17th century. They lost their faith in the invincibility of the Mughal power and resolved to try their luck elsewhere. Soon, they endeared themselves to the Ahom-ruling class by their expertise in various professions. Since then, they have been an integral part of the Assamese nationality."

"Since time immemorial, Assam has been a part of the Indian civilizational axis. It is a continuation of a connected history of the ancient kingdom known as Pragjyotishpura and Kamarupa."

"Roughly from 1930 till 1947, the Muslim League phase was one of the most violent and aggressive phases of Assam’s politics. The Congress leadership in Assam had to confront them at all levels. The British and the colonial administration were important partners of Muslim League, as the former wanted the Muslim League to take on Congress to check the burgeoning nationalism in the easternmost part of the country. Besides, the British were all in favour of opening up grazing land, wasteland and agricultural land to the immigrants so that they could earn revenue to the maximum extent possible."

"But our objection is to those outsiders who have come here with arms and are bent to destroy our national existence. Those hooligans thousand in numbers are creating a war-like situation in the rural areas by encroaching land and property at gunpoint. Their agenda is to create lawlessness and anarchy—those undesirable elements are our enemy."

"We have no place to go and hide. Those oppressors are coming from Mymensingh and Noakhali of Bengal. If Assamese people are subjected to such torture where would they go? We have no place except the hill areas. Even there we shall be eliminated. So what is the way out for the Assamese?"

"From 1939, Hamid Khan became the vanguard of a radicalized organization called the Muslim League whose main objective was the attainment of Pakistan and the forcible inclusion of Assam into it. In the actions of Maulana of Bhasani, the people of Assam for the first time witnessed such polarizing politics in the name of God: Not only do I kick at the law by means of which the houses of the lakhs of people have been burnt down, I declare Jehad in the name of Allah. It is not possible for the minority Mussalmans of Assam to end this oppression. It is not possible to solve this problem without resorting to Jehad for the sake of Allah. … [T]he whole world is docile before the Mighty and killer of the weak … the days have come now to get your demands fulfilled by becoming Swahids in the path of Allah. Everything depends on your unity and organisation. (italics in original)"

"We the Muslims who ruled India for more than 700 years, lost independence 200 years ago. We are now sleeping. We have not only lost our intelligence and courage but also have forgotten our social and religious culture. What a severe oppression is going on upon us. If we wish to save ourselves, we the 10,000,000 (ten millions) of Muslims should be united and get ready to sacrifice our lives for the freedom of our country. Ten millions of Muslims should give a slogan that we want to be freed from the shackle of slavery. If necessary, we should sacrifice our lives in the midst of the waves of blood. We shall make the blood flow. Without bloodshed there is no means of obtaining freedom."

"Beliram Das contended that the sudden onrush of immigrants into Assam was an actual invasion of the province under the political design of the Muslim League. He referred to the speeches by the members of the League party who expressed that the immigration had no connection with their demand for the inclusion of Assam in the Eastern Zone of Pakistan. In this connection, Beliram Das referred to a speech of Maulavi Abdur Rouf, leader of the immigrant Muslims, in course of his address as the chairman of the Reception Committee of the League meeting presided over by Chaudhury Khaliquzzaman, held at Barpeta on 7–8 March 1944. He said: The same fresh blood which runs through their veins even to-day again took the rudder to tow their boats against the Current of the ever flowing Jomuna, to make their way for a new conquest of Assam. Being deprived of their arms shields and swords by the mercy of the British Rulers, they with a cane shield bamboo stick, spears and plough came and effected their landing either in chars or in the jungles adjacent to the rivers. The soul of martyrs and devotees of past, are witnessing this new expedition of the Bengalee Muslims - the Holy servants of Allah, from above with yawning eagerness and thankfulness too with increased vitality in the life of the community and with the help of numerous new reinforcements, the figure in the sub-division of Barpeta alone could be raised up to 65000."

"A prominent Christian tribal leader of the state, Nichols Roy said We know what the policy of the Muslim league is in Assam. Even now the Muslim League in Bengal wants to send thousands upon thousands of immigrants to Assam and take possession of the land of Assam. That is feared by everyone. The people of the Hills are afraid of immigration and say that they will fight it to the last. The people of the plains don’t want to be swamped. They don’t want Assam, which is a non-Muslim majority province now, to be turned into a Muslim majority province. … Once we go into the section, we are committed to a wrong principle, we are acceding to the unjust demand of the League."

"Since time immemorial, Assam has been a part of the Indian civilizational axis. It is a continuation of a connected history of the ancient kingdom known as Pragjyotishpura and Kamarupa. In his monumental work Early History of Kamarupa, Rai K. L. Barua Bahadur argues that Pragjyotisha, which was then a powerful kingdom, is often mentioned in the epics and Puranas. Long before Bengal was even fit for habitation, Kamarupa underwent the process of Aryanization at an earlier time than central and lower Bengal."

"In the Mahabharata, the extent of Pragjyotisha was up to the Bay of Bengal in the south and to the Karatoya (which stretches from the Tista, the Koshi to the Mahanadi) in the west. The Kalika Purana mentions that the temple of Kamakhya near Guwahati was the centre point of Kamarupa. The Purana deals with the story of Kamarupa and Naraka. Naraka was born from the earth through its impregnation by Vishnu (in the Treta Yuga) and was brought up by Janaka, the king of Videha, in present-day north Bihar. He married the daughter of the king of Vidarbha. He came under the influence of Bana Asura and as a result became irreligious and presumptuous. Bana Asura ruled over Sonitpura and is believed to have built the Mahabhairava temple that contains a huge linga. Naraka was eventually slain by Vishnu in his incarnation as Krishna. In present-day North Guwahati, there now stands the temple of Aswaklanta, which means jaded horses. While invading Pragjyotisha to destroy Narakasura, Lord Krishna is said to have halted there, after his horses became tired, and a large number of small holes in the rocks near the river are believed to be the footprints of his horses. Bhagadatta, the son of Naraka and the successor Pragjyotisha, took part in the Mahabharata battle on the side of the Kauravas and died in the hands of Arjuna.5 The Vishnu Purana says that the country extended around the temple in all directions for 100 yojanas (about 450 miles). Its domain included the present-day territories of eastern Bengal, Assam and Bhutan. According to the Yogini Tantra, the king- dom of Kamarupa extended from the Karatoya river on the west to the Dikhou on the east, and from the mountains of Kanjagiri on the north to the confluence of Brahmaputra and Lakhya rivers on the south. It included the Brahmaputra valley, Bhutan, Rangpur, Cooch Behar, the north-east of Mymensingh and the Garo Hills."

"The Aryan influence became so widespread and penetrating that even minor Vedic customs and rituals deep rooted in the life of the common people... Aryanisation led to a unification of the innumerable tribal groups particularly in the Brahmaputra valley primarily through the development of a language which was a direct descendant of Magadhi Apabhramsa’."

"The physical features of the Assamese people are a mixture of the racial characteristics of both the Aryan and the Mongoloid races, with traces of the Dravidian and the Austric people as well …. The Ahoms, descendants of the Shan community from China’s Yunan province, played a major role in bringing the Assamese-speaking people within a common political umbrella and gave the people the name Assamese, a derivative of the word Ahom.13"

"a process of Aryanisation in which even some tribes like the Kacharis, the Lalungs, the Mikirs and others were converted to a new caste, the Koch. Thus the linguistic community which took shape in Brahmaputra valley and came to be known as the Assamese underwent a process of Aryanisation and in the process brought Assam culturally so close to the rest of India that by the 15th century Sankardeva who took pride in the fact that he was born in the ‘Bharatabarsha’."

"[A] cultural community developed into a political people with Assamese- ness as the core element of unity. They offered a heroic resistance to the superior force of the Mughals, who invaded the Ahom kingdom a number of times but were defeated. The finest example of this spirit was witnessed in the battle of Saraighat where a heroic leader, Lachit Borphukan, inspired the Assamese to rise as one against an alien invasion. The Mughal invasions were a litmus test for the Assamese spirit. Their unified resistance against an alien power led to the consciousness of an identity, the birth of a kind of nation-ness, without the concept of naturalism."

"Few years back the Bengali Muslims from Mymensingh and other areas have settled in Assam. The Assamese Muslims have the enormous responsibility to get them educated in Assamese language, make them proud Assamese and thus strengthen the base of Assamese nationality."

"It was Abdul Matin Chaudhury, a close aide of Jinnah, who had increasingly drawn Jinnah’s attention to Assam. Muhammad Ali Jinnah wrote a letter to Chaudhury on 25 March 1945: ...You are quite right that in Assam Muslims were dead. … But while I have said all this I do not want you to despair or become despondent. Our cause is honest and righteous. We may have to go through the sufferings and sacrifices and so organize ourselves. Out of ashes the true followers of Islam will rise with the noble spirit of Islam in Assam that will sweep away the traitors, hirelings and quislings amongst us. Face your opponents with power and organisation which will be irresistible."

"The rise of AIUDF is directly linked to the issue of changing character of demographic change in the state. The 2011 census is very important in this regard. As per the census of 2011, total Hindu population stands at 61.47% and Muslim population at 34.22%. At the rural areas Hindus comprise 58.57% and Muslims comprise 36.85%. In 1971, Muslims in Assam comprised of 24.6%. Facts reveal that in 1971 only Dhubri and Hailakandi districts were Muslim majority; in 1991 four districts have turned out to be Muslim dominated—Dhubri, Hailakandi, Goalpara and Barpeta. In 2001 six districts have become Muslim dominated; and in 2011 nine districts have become Muslim dominated. … In these districts there are dominance of East Bengal origin Muslims. Immigration of Muslim to Assam mainly started in order to meet the British colonial economic inter- est. On the eve of partition and even in post partition days, the process of immigration more or less continued. The immigration process height- ened during Bangladesh liberation war. The issue of unnatural growth of Muslim population in the state was linked to the issue of Immigration of Bangladeshi Muslims to Assam."

"In Asia, a prominent example of immigration-driven ethnic change is taking place in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam. A Hindu-majority tongue of Indian territory lying north of Muslim Bangladesh, Assam has long been host to large-scale illegal, but peaceful, Bengali immigration. Bengali Muslims grew 30 to 50 percent over the period 1971 to 1991. They now constitute more than 30 percent of Assam’s population and are believed to control the electoral verdict in 60 of Assam’s 126 Assembly constituencies. Numerous battles have taken place over whether large numbers of Muslims have the legal status necessary to add their name to the electoral rolls. Muslim growth has been the catalyst for ugly Assamese attacks against unarmed Bengali workers since the 1980s, and an Assamese political movement demands the deportation of illegal immigrants. This conflict is regional, but on the wider Indian level, the growth of the Muslim population through higher fertility and an often exaggerated degree of illegal immigration has been a red flag for Hindu nationalism. The Muslim population’s fertility advantage over Hindus was 10 percent at partition in 1947, but is now 25–35 percent. Only a fraction of this gap can be explained by relative Muslim poverty. Muslims grew from roughly 8 percent of the Indian total in 1947 to 14 percent today, and are projected to rise to 17 percent by 2050. These are not staggering numbers, yet have proven useful tinder for Hindu nationalists and sparked sporadic violent reprisals against Indian Muslims."

"A very influential work was the Assamese Ramayana by Madhava Kandali, a Brahmin also known as Kaviraja Kandali. It was composed in the fourteenth century at the behest of the Kachari king Shrimahamanikya. It was in five kandas and was an adaption and condensation of Valmiki’s work. It was completed in its present form of seven kandas by Shankaradeva, the great Assamese saint and poet, and his disciple Madhavadeva, who added the Bala and Uttara Kandas. Shankaradeva also wrote a play, the Rama Vijaya, on Rama's marriage and his humbling of Parashurama (Smith 1995: 27- Several other works were written in the following centuries like the Lava Kusara Yuddha, the Sitara Banabasa, the Katha Ramayana and the Nagaksa Yuddha (Smith 1995: 29-30)."

"The first Ramayana to be translated into a regional language from the main Sanskrit Ramayana, among the north Indian languages, is Madhav Kandali’s Saptakanda Ramayana in Assamese. This was carried out in the 14th century. Madhava Kandali created his work under the patronage of Raja Mahamanikya, the Kachari king whose kingdom was situated in the present-day district of Nagaon. Acknowledging Madhava Kandali’s literary prowess, Mahapurusha Sri Sankardeva later commented thus ‘Seeking Rama in the works of my unchal- lenged predecessor, I felt like the rabbit running away in fear seeing the elephant’s dung’."

"Assam’s sociocultural fabric is agog with stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Right from Sadiya, Manipur and Liqabali (near Silapathar) in Arunachal Pradesh to the land of Dimarajya (now known as the NC Hills), Tezpur or Sonitpur, many places in the entire region are associated with various ancient tales of Indic civilization and reli- gion. The Kamakhya temple and several other temples dedicated to Durga, Shiva, Vishnu and Krishna are scattered in the north-eastern region, and many festivals celebrated in their honour have been glorifying and sustaining those cultural memories for generations."

"Assam has been a big victim of demographic change. In 2021, the Muslim population crossed 38 per cent, and as we speak, it is about 39.5 per cent of the state population"

"If people from other parts and communities are excluded, Assamese Hindus are not more than 40 per cent today."