The Prose of Metamorphosis: Insurgency and Contemporary Assamese Fiction

A procession during the Assam Agitation(1979-85)

Image courtesy: Digital North East

First published in Yaatra: The Journal of Assamese Literature and Culture, Oct-Dec 2008.

I

Introduction

In Chapter 9 of Dhrubajyoti Borah’s Kalantarar Godya (The Prose of Tempest, 1997) the author makes a very shocking observation: “He (Alok) has undergone a metamorphosis” (263). Until this point, Alok is projected as someone who has wavered from his ideals, his promises to his comrades, and thus becomes the traitor figure. In an earlier chapter, the protagonist Partha, the Assam Correspondent of an unnamed international newspaper, notices a pair of familiar eyes staring at him from an army vehicle, bringing a flash of memory of someone who was taken away under security cover. But only the eyes are revealed, rest of the face remains concealed behind a piece of black cloth. The army raids the village from where he Partha is reporting, and the villagers assume that someone from the ‘party’ had leaked out the information. Partha witnesses two dead bodies after this scene: one of them is of Hazarika—a top leader of the secessionist militant organization—who he interviewed a few years back for his newspaper. More scenes flash through his mind: how Hazarika helped him move out of their base camp in neck-deep water on a bamboo raft with great concern and care, while he spoke about Che and his dream of an Independent Assam. Partha is informed later that it was someone called Alok who had leaked out information to the army.

There is a different Alok in Chapter 9. He is imprisoned in the army camp and only two options are laid before him: to render full co-operation to the army or to die. The will to live, of course takes precedence. Borah’s subtle treatment of Alok’s “metamorphosis” is significant because Alok’s story symbolises the definitive changes that are taking place within Assam that were inaugurated by the Assam Agitation under the AASU (All Assam Students’ Union) from 1979 -1985. The six hundred years of glorious Ahom history was erased in one short but tumultuous period of six years.[i] After February 18 1983, when nearly a thousand or more suspected Bangladeshis were butchered in the village of Nellie by a band of jingoistic Assamese it was underlined that politics in Assam will never remain the same, which in turn made a great impact on Assamese literature.

Hence Alok’s metamorphosis—from the ‘traitor’ figure to the pathetic trapped militant in the army camp, and his gradual reduction to a beast-like persona who patrols naked within the four walls of his room like a lunatic—is representative of the metamorphosis of the whole state of Assam.

***

In the last few months, certain short stories have caught the attention of the reading public of Assam. For instance Arup Kumar Nath’s “Koli Puran”[ii] and Sanjib Pol Deka’s “Kathiseleka”[iii] look back at this nationalist period with rejection. But these are just two instances that owe much to the novels of Rita Chaudhury, Arupa Patangia Kalita and Dhrubajyoti Bora. These stories can be seen as culminating points of what these writers sought to analyse in their novels. After the longer narratives, shorter narratives proliferate to symbolise the renewed interests on the Assam Agitation by the young generation of writers

Rita Chaudhury is a lecturer of Political Science at Cotton College, Guwahati. She has written extensively on the Assam Agitation. Her active role in the students’ movement during her college days (Deb Chaudhury) has not only added authenticity to her analysis but also colour and vividness. Abirata Jatra (The Perennial Journey), Ei Samay Sei Samay (These Times Those Times) and Byortho Mollar (Failed Malhar) are some novels that look back at those six years with a critical eye. Arupa Patangia Kalita is a lecturer of English Literature in Tongla College. Her writings primarly focus on the plight of common people amidst the surge of insurgency and military operations with a gendered perspective. The novella Arunimar Swadesh (Arunima’s Swadesh) deals with the issue of secret killings that took place in the late nineties when relatives of insurgents were targeted by unknown people possibly to break their mental strength. In fact in a single night, often a whole family was wiped out. The most brutal example is perhaps the killing of the whole family of alleged ULFA member and poet Mithinga Daimary alias Megan Kachari. Dhrubajyoti Bora is a doctor by profession. His trilogy on the insurgent movement Kalantarar Gadya, Artha (Meaning) and Tejor Endhar (Darkness of Blood) created ripples in the Assamese literary landscape.

This new body of work that negotiates insurgency has certain common features that bind them together. They reject the jingoistic Assam Agitation, accept its mistakes and often depict the plight of innocent common people caught in the crossfire between the insurgent groups and the government. Thus, along with the metamorphosis of Assamese politics, Assamese literature has undergone a significant change through the depiction of contemporary politics. It’s thus crucial to see how this transmutative anxiety is depicted/analysed rendering these works landmarks.

***

The alteration of Alok is not incidental for it also works on a metaphorical level. But similar figurative echoes are in the three novels that would be discussed here: Kalatoror Gadya (1997), Phelani (2003) and Kolijar Aai (2006). Kalantoror Gadya is the first major work in Assamese fiction that aimed to depict the effects of insurgency in Assam from multiple perspectives. Serialised in Gariyoshi magazine from 1994 - 1995, it created a sensation among the readers for its gripping narrative, detailed socio-theoretical analysis of the problem, and loyal depiction of the human condition amidst turbulence.

Phelani is selected for discussion because it is the only major novel that looks at the situation from a gendered perspective. Most of the other novels have a male protagonist and (KG, Kolijar Aai, Hiranya Kashyap’s Samay and Anurag Mahanta’s Aulingor Jui)[iv] the gendered condition is not discussed in detail.[v] Phelani celebrates the existence of a small group of women amidst strife. In fact, the by Arupa Patangia’s analysis of insurgency is always from a gendered perspective—be it in Arunima’s Swadesh, Kunur Makor Ghor (2007) Phelani, etc.[vi]

Dilip Bora is an economist and holds the position of IGP in Indian Police Service. His novel Kolijar Aai serilised in Prantik before its publication in book-form in 2007 generated immense interest and popularity among the readers. It’s a novel that looks back at the last twenty-eight years of turbulent Assam politics with an economist’s eye. I selected this novel due to its plausible depiction of the life of an insurgent. I presume Bora drew heavily from his experiences as a police officer in Assam for the novel. The precise details of the bildungsroman, the names of guns’ models, training locations in Burma, making blue prints of a terrorist attack, or a bank robbery by Chinmay the protagonist are examples that corroborate this point. Though he doesn’t have the lyricism and evocative imagery of Arupa Patangia Kalita and the complex analysis of Kalandatoror Gadya I wanted to bring the novel to this discussion also because of its name; the synonymity of Chinmay’s mother with all the mothers of Assam; besides, the metaphorical rendition of the mother-image to describe the native state of the protagonist is poignant.[vii]. The title of the novel roughly translates as ‘My Dear Mother’.

II

The Prose of Tempest (1997)

“He (Alok) has undergone a metamorphosis. (pp: 263)”

Alok is not the only example among many in the novel where characters undergo metamorphosis. In Chapter 9, titled “Whirlpool”, a naked Alok walks from one end of the room to the other; he masturbates and dreams about running around in camps inside dense forests with his comrades. This underlines his desire to realize his dreams to achieve freedom (pp 262). Here, his health deteriorates and he is reduced to a bestial state. The only way to live is to obey the army, make newspaper cuttings of all Assamese dailies and translate them, and cough out information about the insurgent group he was enrolled into.

“Babula Purana”, Chapter 3, shows another metamorphosis. Babula, the deaf and dumb grandson of a helpless old woman is taken into custody during an army operation and his inability to speak is assumed as pretension. Babula is brutally beaten up, subjected to electric shocks on his penis and finally when he dies, his dead body is shown to the journalists as a “dangerous terrorist”, to legitimise their brutish treatment of Babula and claim that the combing operation was successful. The omniscient narrator leads us to a different journey restructuring and completing the story of Babula.

Prabhat, the young college going boy who loved ghazals and “liked to become pensive” while listening (pp: 1) to them “without any reason” turns into a lunatic who will forever gaze at the guava tree and shiver for the rest of his life in fear due to the merciless treatment he faced at the torture centre. Prabhat’s Story, Chapter 1, is just one example how the very core[viii] of a human being is shaken [ix] completely by army interrogations/torture. In the process of erasing terrorism, the state becomes a parallel terror source and thus fails to achieve the intended (?) purpose: peace.

However, another feeling of terror runs throughout the novel which is created by the author. This is the design of the text that leaves an immense psychological impact on the readers. Done through the production of a hellish atmosphere through imagery, motifs and symbols, it challenges the readers from the beginning of the novel. In Chapter 1, “Prabhat’s Story” the beautiful description of the evening is punctured with the consequent repulsive description of a garbage dump located near Prabhat’s house; everyone who has to enter that lane has to face the “sweet, pungent” (pp: 2) smell of the garbage. The image seems to anticipate two main elements—Prabhat’s psychological rottenness and the socio-political rottenness due to insurgency and counter insurgency operations. When Partha goes to interview the insurgents, he notices the relentlessly burning flames around the oil fields. He is told that those were fire produced by the consistent combustion of natural gas. Due to the absence of processing plants, over the years, the huge body of natural gas has been incessantly burnt in the process of procuring crude oil. When wind blows through them, Partha hears a strange noise: as if a group women were wailing. Along with the creation of a hellish atmosphere, this small but significant incident also demonstrates the apathy of the government towards the tapping of natural resources in Assam.

The chapter on Karbi Hills is a contrast to this hellish atmosphere—a pastoral space wherein all problems are resolved temporarily. Ron, the insurgent spends some time here along with his comrades away from the repressive state apparatuses.[x] This is a space where he receives the care of the old Karbi-tribe man who cooks chicken for him when he is down with malaria. This is the space where he speaks to his closest friend Prabin for a long time about the mistakes and the future of the secessionist movement. Their intellectually stimulating as well as sensitive discussion raises some basic questions about the armed struggle. It is noteworthy that the author creates this beautiful landscape of caves, trees and brooks towards the end of the novel; it seems the author’s compassion lies with this ideal space and through its evocative creation he attempts to leave the message that this is the space that everyone should aspire for; or rather, this is the space which is lost now, has undergone metamorphosis and is turned into hell.

Phelani (2007)

“Women should be like this chilly. Tiny, but can burn anyone trying to touch it.”(pp: 61)

The Prose of Tempest leaves us with a question why and perhaps how almost all the characters continue to live even after they are brutally dehumanised by the state. Sombori is raped by the army so often that she finally stops providing resistance; her attempt to end her life with rat-kill leaves her unsuccessful: “But Sombori didn’t die. The rat-kill didn’t kill her. She continued to live” (pp: 203)[xi]. Even Babula exists in the forests in the form of a “ghost” and turns into a lore. Prabhat continues to live gazing and shivering at the slightest noise in his own world of fear. Arupa Patangia Kalita’s Phelani begins where The Prose of Tempest ends. How and why do people live? But this is not the story of Prabhat, Babula and Ron but this is the story of “Sombori-s”. Narratives of women who are like “mem-jolokia” (a very hot breed of chilly) invigorate the readers of Phelani. Though Phelani is the protagonist, equal space is given to ‘Jun’s Mother’, ‘Jaggu’s wife’, ‘Driver’s wife’, ‘Ratna’s wife’, etc.[xii] It’s a community of working class women rendered to this piteous state by the disturbances of the early eighties during Assam Agitation. Phelani’s husband is lost in the communal clash and after that it’s her journey from the relief camp to a new place where another struggle of existence begins just for two meals a day. Through the petty day-to-day quarrels, loving, caring, sharing, trips to the market to sell handicrafts to make ends meet, Arupa Patangia glorifies the existence of these women. Apart from being the very hot mem-chilly, they are also ‘phelanis’ in the eyes of the society: useless like garbage.

Phelani derives her name from the very act which could have ended her life. She was thrown into a shallow pond behind her house during the riots—“That is Phelani. Attached to her name is the sound of splashing water. Since she was thrown, she was named Phelani.” (pp: 10) It sounds as though this motif is derived from classical narratives. It is as if she were the emaciated version of the classical Satyavatī from the Mahābhāratā who was renamed as Yojangaņdhā after Parāśar Muńi gave her a boon as a result of which her body emitted a fragrant smell which traveled for yojans. (‘Ādi Parva’, the Mahābhāratā)

Phelani not only has a unique name. She also inherits a unique biological history: her mother was a high caste Hindu child-widow Ratnamala, who gave birth to Jutimala from Kinaram, a man from the Bodo tribe who worked at Ratnamala’s house as an elephant mahout. For committing the transgressive “crime”, Kinaram was killed and Ratnamala died in childbirth. Jutimala was brought up secretly by Kinaram’s village and family. She was married to Khistish Ghose, a Bengali. The day she gave birth to Phelani, both Khistish and Jutimala died during communal riots. What we are left with is Phelani: a woman who has high caste Hindu, Bodo, Hindu-Bengali’s blood in her body and is married to a Koch now. This is the author’s self-conscious design to leave a comment on actual Assamese identity which is a convergence point of all these communities. This is the story of Phelanni: useless, worthless, and yet she continues to survive.

It was from Kali Burhi she learnt that for a woman to survive, she had to be a mem-chilly: so hot that nobody would dare to touch. The use of Goddess Kali as the symbol of strength and weakness is shown throughout the novel. Kali burhi used fake whorls that Phelani refuses to reveal to the world even after finding it after her death. For Kali burhi it was a mode of survival: a strategy of gaining respect and veneration from the community who would have made her a phelani otherwise. But this is also a space of illusion and escapism as we see in the case of Jun’s Mother. Trapped and stranded in the three-hundred hours bandh it’s the only way for her to deal with the trauma. The novelist doesn’t name the organisation which called the bandh: for these people, what matters most is a working day. They haven’t learnt to lose faith in themselves. If the market remains open, they can sell things: pickles, sweets, handicrafts, home-grown vegetables and survive. Till there is peace and absence of gun shots, they can survive and this survival is exactly what the novel celebrates. With a small group of women, glorifying their otherwise neglected life; Arupa Patangia Kalita tries to find some basic questions about the insurgency movements and the counter insurgency operations.

Who is the actual sufferer? Almost all the insurgents depicted in the novel are affluent and powerful; they lead a luxurious lifestyle. After becoming a Bodo insurgent, and abandoning his demented wife to live hand to mouth, Bolen comes back in a new avatar: unmistakably rich. Minati’s lover, who was a student leader initially, and an insurgent later, and after that a surrendered militant has the ability to offer bundles of currencies to her. But the condition of this small group of women remains the same. Jaggu’s wife still undertakes extreme labour everyday pushing inside her stinking, puss filled uterus repeatedly, which moves out of her vagina due to labour, childbirth and repeated abortions; Jun’s mother still attempts to make ends meet by not wasting even one minute; and Phelani? Amidst them we don’t know when she became one of them: Moni’s Mother (Moni is her son). She lost her identity as all Assamese have in search of identities within identities. But did Phelani really have an identity? Do Assamese signify a single ethnic identity? Or how important is identity in itself? This is the implicit question that the novel raises and challenges the basis of many nationalistic movements in Assam.

Kolijar Aai (2007)

“My name is Chinmoy Barua alias Parag Mahanta” (pp: 1)

This is the first line of the novel and its publication has firmly established that Assamese literature won’t remain the same anymore. I see this novel as a culminating point of a tradition started by Abirata Yatra by Rita Choudhury, fortified by Kalantar Gadya. This is validated by the division of consciousness indicated in the quoted line seen through the bifurcated identity of the first person narrator of the novel. It seems to point towards the fissures inherent within the Assamese society between the dominant (upper caste Hindu) and the marginal communities (tribes and sub-tribes, lower-class Muslims). These divisions establish themselves in the novel through various ways: from the split in the identity (pp: 1) to the search for an alternative schema of action of the ongoing student movement (pp 53) the novel enacts the splits and fissures within Assam symbolically and metaphorically. But soon one realises that as Chinmoy’s consciousness gets divided between Chinmoy Barua and Parag Mahanta, the student agitators look for an alternative expressive mode; disillusioned, as they are with the Assam Agitation and seek to form a new armed extremist group. Chinmoy’s mother’s conjecture as if predicts the current situation of Assam.—What would happen if all the tribes and sub-tribes start demanding more independent nations? A question she asks her son when he goes to meet her for the last time. The novel thus not only opens with a split but continues to enact and predict further similar cracks within the Assamese society.

This is also dramatised in the slow rejection of the mother figure which is perhaps a metaphorical distancing of the character from his people. (The movement that he finally so firmly believes in is not a people’s movement). For the first six chapters, the novel remains loyal to its title: it repeatedly goes back to the fond memories of domestic past steeped in Chinmoy’s tender feelings about his mother; her aspirations and dreams for him are expressed in simple and lucid prose. After meeting Sarodi, one notices a gradual decline of the mother-figure foreshadowing metaphorical death/murder. The original mother figure is replaced by Sarodi as an alternative mother figure/love object in almost an oedipal pattern. This spilt in his relationship with his mother is symbolic of a break with his past and the community which also goes back to the first line of the novel; the war that he goes to fight is fought from the margins, from the forests in semi-primitive ways. The drama is completed with his rejection of Sarodi when he doesn’t go to meet her at the Kamakhya temple; we never find Sarodi or his mother again. The insurgent Chinmoy Barua who is Parag Mahanta now is finally separated from both his past and present. What kind of a movement is this which has roots neither in its past nor in its present? This is the prime question that the novel raises.

III

It was xenophobia that alarmed the Assamese middle class to start the Assam Agitation. But if we go back, we find that the fear of being belittled and overwhelmed by a new numerical majority has remained in the minds of the Assamese for a long time[xiii]. In 1928 Assamese-nationalist leader Ambikagiri Roy Choudhury initiated an all-party conference to discuss the mass migration of ‘outsiders’ to Assam who were settling in the barren lands of the state and worked as daily wage earners. The Assamese middle class felt this new section of people would dilute their culture. This conference culminated in the formation of a “Colonising Scheme” according to which, “a small family was given thirty bighas of land against a lump sum amount . . . During the six years ending 1936, fifty-nine grazing reserves were opened up for settlement of the immigrant peasants in the district of Nowgong” (Guha)[xiv]. But what was the need to convene such a meeting? If we look at the history of immigration, it is observed that this trend was encouraged at first by the British. After the annexation of Assam in 1826, the British employed a large number of English-educated Bengalis in the services which encouraged migration from undivided Bengal to Assam (Barooah)[xv]. The British government also encouraged large scale migration into Assam for their own economic gains.[xvi] This was also the reason why Sylhet was included into Assam after the formation of the Chief Commissioner’s Province to increase the revenue gains of Assam (Guha). But politics changed in 1905 during the Partition of Bengal when Bengal was divided on religious lines. This act not only anticipated partition of 1947 but also the large scale migration of East Pakistanis in 1947 to the districts of Hailakandi, Karimgunj and Dhubri in Assam. Such migration, on a vast scale, which is continuing even now[xvii], has changed and is changing the demographic pattern of Assam completely. Hence, the current proliferation of secessionist tendencies and identity politics are nothing more than the outcome of the divide and rule policies of colonial administration and their scramble for economic gains.

But to come to terms with this, Assamese literature took some time to shed the romantic recollection of a people’s movement and look at it with a critical eye. And this explains why the three novels that reflect metamorphosis of the Assamese society ends with a quest, or a hope. Phelani ends with the playful description of the group of women collecting straw to mend their roofs since the rainy season has started. This scene symbolises their daily struggle to make ends meet. One of them asks, what will happen if we cut these kanhi-grasses? The other replies, who can finish cutting all of them? The next question seems to reflect their life full of struggle: if you cut them?—and the reply is, they will grow again. If it rains and they get drenched, spread them on the ground when sun shows itself and you can use them once again. This small conversation serves as a resistance to all the divisive politics that paralyse Assam. In spite of all secessionist tendencies and the creation of more and more armed rebellious groups along communal and ethnic lines, the common people remain united and continue to exist.

· All translations of textual quotes of the novels are mine.

References:

1. The Assam Agitation : Promises and Results, ed. Dr. Hiren Gohain and Dr. Dilip Bora; Balalata Publications, 2001.

2. “Novels of a Few Twentieth Century Assamese Writers”, pp: 700-708 ; in Hundred Years of Assamese Novel ed Nagen Thakur; Jyoti Publications, Guwahati, November 2000

3. Freedom: Dream and Reality, by Paragmoni Aditya; Niyor Publications, Guwahati, 2002.

4. The Prose of Tempest (Kalantoror Gadya), novel by Dr. Dhrubajyoti Bora, Students’ Stores, Feb 1997.

5. Kolijar Aai, novel by Dilip Bora, Purbanchal Publications, Guwahati, August 2006

6 Phelani, novel by Arupa Patangia Kalita, Jyoti Publications, Dec 2003.

7. “Foreigners in Assam and the Assamese Middle Class”, Kaustavmoni Baruah, Social Scientist, Vol 8, No 11. Link http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0970-0293(198006)8%3A11%3C44%3A%22IAAAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

8. “Ethnic' Conflict as State—Society Struggle: The Poetics and Politics of Assamese Micro-Nationalism”, Sanjib Baruah, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3. (Jul., 1994). Link : http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-749X(199407)28%3A3%3C649%3A'CASST%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

9. “Once More on the Assam Movement”, Hiren Gohain, Social Scientist, Vol. 10, No. 11. (Nov., 1982). Link : http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0970-0293(198211)10%3A11%3C58%3AOMOTAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F

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[i] Actually, Assam was culturally bound in one single entity only by the Vaishnav Saint Srimanta Sankardeve in the 16^th c. Most of the time the three dominant groups of Bodos, Kochs and the Ahoms in upper Assam primarily kept fighting against each other for territory. (Gohain) However, they always stood together as a common force against foreign aggression due to the commonality they shared with the larger Assamese culture that centred on folk festivals.

[ii] First published in Gariyoshi, November 2007.

[iii] First published in Gariyoshi.Winner of fourth prize in Gariyoshi Short Story Competition

[iv] KG, Kolijar and Samay entirely focus on an androcentric world. KG’s protagonist is a man and out of the eleven chapters only the fourth, sixth and eighth chapters have significant female characters. However, in 4^th and 8^th they are only mediums through which masculinity is manifested since in both the chapters they function as mere love-objects. Though Ch 6 is about the indispensibility of rape in state-sponsored counter-insurgency operations, it’s named not after Sombari, whose story it is. See Kolijar Aai section of this essay. Samay narrates the story of another masculinist world where women are allowed to function only through binaries: mother figure and the love-object.

[v] Till now, I haven’t come across a work where a female insurgent is depicted but its known that all the major insurgent groups of Assam have women cadres.

[vi] Even her first major novel Ayonnanto (Dawn, Zubaan/Penguin) is the depiction of the pre-independence women condition through the eyes of Binapani.

[vii] Lakshminath Bezbaruah’s song, recognised as the National Song of Assam, ‘O Mur Apunar Dex’ of Assam refers to Assam as ‘Asomi Aai’ (Mother Asom).

[viii] The novel also depicts how counter-insurgency operations attack the foundations of a society in symbolic terms. When Prabhat is arrested, the non-Assamese army officer throws away an Assamese classic novel regarded as a milestone in Assamese literature: Bina Barua’s Jibonor Batotot.

[ix] This is also the prime motif of torture sessions. Prabhat’s torture scenes are interspersed with journalist Choudhury’s detailed narration of the history of torture which somehow links this process with a tradition or repression which has come down unfortunately to the present day.

[x]“Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, Louis Althusser.

[xi] Sombori’s case is representative of several widely known rape cases that took place in Assam during Operation Rhino that started on 14^th September, 1991 which broke the backbone of ULFA: (a) Raju Barua, a student of Chariduwar College, Sutargaon, Gohpur was raped by a group of jawans on October 6 1991 when they entered her house during a combing operation; they carried her to the backyard of her house, gang raped her and threw her in a pond. Her brother managed to take her to the hospital where she died. Medical tests confirmed rape (Sombori in the novel couldn't even manage to file a report) and even the Assam State Government accepted the occurrence of the incident; (b) Bhonimai Dutta, a fourteen year old minor was raped by the jawans on October 16, 1991 in her own house. Her post-mortem was done three days later and the Assam State Government refused to accept the accusation but Minister Borgoram Deuri went to their house and gave a compensation of one lakh rupees and promised a government job to one of the family members. ( pp: 62-63; Aditya)

[xii] These dilutions of actual identities also show how women continually lose their true/ primary identities in the process of integrating themselves in the society in a patriarchal context.

[xiii] Probably, the fear of being belittled and rendered extinct by a larger numerical minority, is characteristic of all communities. Juvenal’s Satires are perhaps some of the earliest literary examples of xenophobia where the Romans felt threatened due to the large scale migration of Greeks into Rome during the first and second century AD.

[xiv] As quoted by K Barua , in From Planter Raj to Swaraj. Amalendu Guha.

[xv] Maniram Dewan Borbhandar Barua in fact raised strong arguments for the employment of indigenous people in the institutions under the British government. (Barua)

[xvi] “As the cultivable land was much more in proportion to the inhabitants and the government did not want to be deprived of the land revenue from these lands, the British administration encouraged large scale immigration in Assam.” (Barua)

[xvii] On 31^st May 2008, Minister Dr. Bhumidhar Barman and his team made a trip to the Karingunj district sector of India-Bangladesh border. From unhindered transportation of goods through Kusiara river from India to Bangladesh to a land dispute between a Bangladeshi family and an Indian army officer Colonel Prabhu Singh where the Bangladheshi family still pays the land revenue to the Indian government—there are many some incidents exchange still present between the two nations. About three kilometres of border in Karimgunj district and about 2.8 kilometres of disputed area still remain open without any border signifier. The team was finally convinced about the unhindered movement of Bangladehsi migrants to Assam in search of livelihood, as reported. (1^st June, 2008, Amar Asom, Assamese daily.)