CASTE DIMENSIONS IN THE ETHNOCENTRIC POLEMICS OF ASSAM

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CASTE DIMENSIONS IN THE ETHNOCENTRIC POLEMICS OF ASSAM:

Presented in the

NATIONAL SEMINAR ON: “INTERROGATING CASTE IN ASSAM: HISTORY,IDEOLOGY AND MANIFESTATION”

Organised by the

HISTORY DEPARTMENT, DIBRUGARH UNIVERSITY (ASSAM)

17th and 18th October, 2014

Presented by

Manas Jyoti Bordoloi

Assistant Prof. in History

Saraighat College, Changsari

Abstract:

“There is a popular saying in the academic as well as non academic circles of Assam that ours is astate free from caste related prejudices and social tensions. However, reality is somewhat different.Though it is not lucid, in comparison to the society of mainland India one may rather find caste in adiluted and fluid form in Assam. Analysing the discourse of the present day ethnocentric polemics ofAssam one may find that its genesis has deep rooted relation with the caste based social division ofancient Assam. Going through available supporting documents of different genre an onlooker mayeasily find that many of the present day’s unresolved problems has roots in the caste based socialsystem of the pre-British Assam. Germinated in the seedbed of the pre-colonial caste-basedSanskritized social condition and nourished under the colonial rule, these problems became morecomplex and seemingly irresolvable in post-colonial Assam.

It may be traced that roots of the present ethnic discontents in Assam lies in her structured socialsystem since the pre-colonial era and in this very social-structure Caste played the role of a dominantcentre. As every structure depends upon a centre and the latter always tend to exclude those lives inthe margin, Caste based Sanskritized social system considered different ethnic communities of Assam

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as its worthy ‘Other’. With the advancement of time, interplay between the ‘Caste and Tribe’ had beenfreezed in a historical process and as a recourse to this process of the dominance and exclusion, in thepost colonial Assam, one after another ethnic communities started to assert ethnocentric-identity onthe basis of their ‘difference’ with the Caste based society. Available literary and other sources help oneto find that in a historical process the Colonial rule and the colonial anthropology further stratified thestructured society of pre-colonial Assam and contributed to the creation of an irresolvable condition inher post-colonial situation.”

CASTE DIMENSIONS IN THE ETHNOCENTRIC POLEMICS OF ASSAM:

Manasjyoti Bordoloi

Assistant Professor in History

Saraighat College, Changsari

There is a popular saying in the academic as well as non academiccircles of Assam that ours is a state free from caste relatedprejudices and social tensions. However, reality is somewhatdifferent. Though it is not lucid, in comparison to the society ofmainland India one may rather find caste in a diluted and fluid formin Assam. Analysing the discourse of the present day ethnocentricpolemics of Assam one may find that its genesis has deep rootedrelation with the caste based social division of ancient Assam. Goingthrough available supporting documents of different genre an onlookermay easily find that many of the present day’s unresolved problemshas roots in the caste based social system of the pre-British Assam.Germinated in the seedbed of the pre-colonial caste-basedSanskritized social condition and nourished under the colonial rule,these problems became more complex and seemingly irresolvable inpost-colonial Assam.

The hypothesis of this paper is that roots of the present ethnicdiscontents in Assam lies in her structured social system since thepre-colonial era and in this very social-structure Caste played therole of a dominant centre. As every structure depends upon a centreand the latter always tend to exclude those lives in the margin,Caste based Sanskritized social system considered different ethniccommunities of Assam as its worthy ‘Other’. With the advancement oftime, interplay between the ‘Caste and Tribe’ had been freezed in a

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historical process and as a recourse to this process of the dominanceand exclusion, in the post colonial Assam, one after another ethniccommunities started to assert ethnocentric-identity on the basis oftheir ‘difference’ with the Caste based society. Available literaryand other sources help one to find that in a historical process theColonial rule and the colonial anthropology further stratified thestructured society of pre-colonial Assam and contributed to thecreation of an irresolvable condition in her post-colonial situation.

Conceptual explanations:

It is essential to explain regarding the term ‘Tribe’ in this contextbefore doing further discussion on the theme of the paper. Severalcommon terminologies used in the ethnocentric discourse of Assam,like ‘Tribe’, ‘Tribal’, ‘Excluded and Partially Excluded Area’, etc,had been introduced by the colonial administration throughout the19th century. The term ‘Tribe’ itself was alien to the Indiansubcontinent prior to the arrival of the British; classical Sanskrithad such terms as Arannyavasi, Kirata, etc, to refer to people whofollowed a non-Aryanised culture or way of life. In the Ashokaninscriptions, the term Arannyavasi is used to mean the people of non-Aryan faith and practices (Thapar, 2002). No local term in classicalIndian literature is commensurate to what, in anthropology, is meantby the words ‘Tribe’ or ‘Tribal’. Such words were introduced forpurely administrative purposes in colonial India.

The administrative division of the people of India along the lines of‘Tribal’ and ‘Non-Tribal’ began with the British provision for non-Regulated Areas in and around the year 1833, followed by theScheduled Districts Act, 1874. People in the non-Regulated Areas andthen in the Scheduled Districts

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came to be recognized by colonial rulers as ‘Tribes’. In 1935, in theGovernment of India Act, the colonial administration renamed them as ‘Backward Tribes’, which was further modified after independence, when a list of Scheduled Tribes was drawn up. Over a century and a quarter of their evolution, these provisions have covered areas identified and demarcated at various times as ‘Backward Tracts’, ‘Excluded Territories’, and ‘Partially Excluded Territories’, not to mention the areas marked in old maps as ‘Un-Administered Territories’(Prabhakara, 2012). Along with the above discussed political and the administrative considerations, after 1857, meticulously colonial anthropology solidified the process of social stratification on the basis of caste and non-caste people. The latter, socially got new identification in this process as the ‘Tribe or Tribal’. As observed by the historian Jayeeta Sharma, in Assam, the very use of words ‘Tribe’ and ‘Tribal’ in difference to common usage, in here, indeed are seen as a badge of honour as against references to ‘Caste’ populations.i On the basis of difference and social distance from the ‘Castes’ middle class leadership of different ‘Tribes’ have already organized their people and asserted ethnocentric identity in Assam.

In other words it can be said that ‘Caste’ is the centring orcontesting point around which multi lingual and multi-ethnicheterogeneous population of Assam has been divided in two distinctgroups. Out of these two groups one is formed by the ‘Caste-HinduAssamese’ population and the other by the different ethniccommunities of Assam. With the advancement of time, in the postcolonial Assam, contradiction between these two has beendistinctively intensified and its manifestation may be seen in therevivalist attempt of the people of different indigenous ethniccommunities who have been otherwise accepted or to a considerableextent absorbed in the process of Sanskritization in Assam.Therefore, one may find that along with ongoing process ofethnocentric politico-economic movements in Assam members ofdifferent ethnic communities who have for generations identifiedthemselves using Caste-Hindu names and title now started to changethe latter and adopted new titles that distinctively help one tounderstand of which ethnic community and clan they are belong to.

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This above mentioned trend can be seen amongst the Cast-HinduAssamese also. Increasing use of the clan titles declaring crudestform of caste-Hindu affiliation by this section of people may bementioned in this context. Thus, one may find that social atmosphereof the post colonial Assam, has been charged with ‘Caste orientation’with the advancement of time in a very intriguing and sometimedistinct way where ‘Tribe’ stand as a worthy ‘Other’ of the ‘Caste’.This difference and sometime opposition between the Caste and Tribe,as scholars opine, has contributed to a considerable extentconstruction of identities in the ethnocentric polemics in Assam.Here one has to keep in mind that every identity is a construct(Omvedt, Reprint 2014, p. 1). In common sense language, as scholarsopines identification is constructed on the back of recognition ofsome common origin or shared characteristics with another person orgroup, or with an ideal, and with the natural closure of solidarityand allegiance established on this foundation. Cultural theorist andthe noted Post-Gramscian Stuart Hall in this context significantlyremarked that identification is in the end conditional, lodged incontingency. Once secured, it does not obliterate difference.Precisely because identities are constructed within, not outside,discourse, we need to understand them as produced in specifichistorical and institutional sites within specific discursiveformations and practices (Hall, 1996, pp. 16-17). In consonance withthe view of Hall, host of scholars of the opinion that

“...above all, and directly contrary to the form in which theyare constantly evoked, identities are constructed throughdifference. This entails the radically disturbing recognitionthat it is only through the relation to the ‘Other’, therelation to what it is not, to precisely what it lacks, to whathas been called its constitutive outside that the ‘positive’meaning of any term-and thus its ‘identity’ can be constructed.(Derrida, 1981), (Laclau, 1990), (Butler, 1993)

Therefore, in the discourse of the ethnocentric polemics of the postcolonial Assam, specially when one try to discuss or understand theongoing ethnic unrest, it may be said that he or she has to start it

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through the pages of history. The process and the history of socialmobility of Assam indeed help one understand how ethnocentricpolemics of this very land are deeply embedded in a century oldunresolved equation between Caste and Tribe.

From the available supporting documents it can be established thatcolonialism reinvented caste, an aged old institution of India tofulfil its own dream and through ethnography and the anthropologyconverted the latter to a rigid, stratified social institution. Inthe process of reinvention of a caste under the colonial rule ‘Tribe’emerged as the worthy ‘Other’ of the caste. Formation of Assam’smulti cultural poly-ethnic heterogeneous society in this ‘Caste-Tribe’ binary combination inevitably invited contradiction betweenthe two. With the advancement of time, in post colonial Assam,conditioned by different factors this contradiction has been changedfrom non-antagonistic of initial stage to an antagonistic one. Itsmanifestation can be seen in present unresolved ethnocentricpolitical mess in Assam. For a better understanding of what has beenalready discussed one need to go through the pages of history fromthe pre-colonial Assam.

Historical Background of Ethnocentrism

In India, prior to the Great Rebellion of 1857, the colonialadministration of the British East India Company relied chiefly onavailable historical resources to formulate administrative policiesto rule the diverse social groups existed in India. However, by thesecond half of the 19th century, the colonial state in India wasabout to undergo several major transformations. Land tax was still animportant source of revenue through the century, as was much of thetrade that had been fundamental to the mercantile origins of theempire. But the 1857 rebellion brought out new challenges andanxieties before the colonial administration, and it became clearthat to face these new challenges a new approach would be essential.Accordingly, imperial ambition and anxiety moved to a different levelof concern, which led to the application of indirect, yet calculatedmeasures to carry forward the colonial ambition in India. With thisnew strategy, the colonial administration abruptly halted its direct

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and aggressive policy of absorption of land, which had been pursuedby Lord Dalhousie. Lord Dalhousie’s policy earned the colonialadministration a lot of ill-fame, and was considered one of the maincauses behind the 1857 rebellion. In its place, policies of indirectrule were mobilized to accommodate, and ultimately appropriate, theincomplete project of colonial conquest. In this context, Nicholas BDirks (Dirks, 2010, pp. 43-45) remarks:

“[I]n this new rhetorical economy of colonial rule, politicalloyalty replaced landed status, and the form of knowledge andargument that seemed most appropriate to assess matters ofloyalty rather than revenue was, of course, knowledge of peopleand cultures. To put the matter in bold relief, after 1857,anthropology supplanted history as the principal colonialmodality of knowledge and rule. To keep India, the British feltthe need to know India Far better than they had, and now theknowledge had to be about the society of India, not just itspolitical economy. The ethnographic state was driven by thebelief that India could be ruled using anthropological knowledgeto understand and control its subjects, and to represent andlegitimate its own mission.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the collection of materialabout castes and tribes and their customs, the specification ofwhat kinds of customs, kinship behaviours, ritual forms, and soon, were appropriate and necessary for ethnographic description,became increasingly formalized and canonic.”

Armed with this understanding, we will try to analyze how caste in ahistorical process that is conditioned by the colonialism and itsanthropology plays a central role in the prevailing ethnocentricproblems of Assam.

Before the arrival of the Ahoms, history speaks of the existence ofthe Kamrupa kingdom – the ancient name of Assam, itself an imaginaryconstruct based on the “Puranic-Geography”, which included areas ofwhat would now be northern Bengal and Bangladesh. The written historyof Kamrupa is available from the seventh century AD. Under the

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colonial administration, Kamrupa of the Puranic epic was turned intoa serviceable name, Kamrup, to denote a revenue district createdafter the annexation of Assam by the British. Soon, Kamrupa itselfbecame “Asam”, another ancient name, but dating to a later period,which in due course was anglicized to Assam (Prabhakara, 2012, p. 7).Four dynasties ruled Kamrupa successively – Bhauma-Naraka, Barmanas,Salastambha, and the Palas. All four dynasties were supposed to havefollowed Brahminical Hinduism. The Brahmins those came from theSanskritized Gangetic belt acted as the missionaries of BrahminicalHinduism who subsequently became successful to establish a closerelationship with the ruling class of Kamrup.

The available inscriptions of this period (from about 700 years ago)state that a few Brahmins from the Gangetic valley had introducedplough cultivation in Kamrupa kingdom. The inscriptions help oneunderstand that the situation prevailing in Kamrupa kingdom wasfavourably inclined towards Brahmins. Barring a few exceptions, theBrahmins themselves were not cultivators, and it was beyond theirindividual capacity to plough the vast areas of which they were therecipients. Given their knowledge of plough cultivation in theGangetic valley, they were able to teach the indigenous peasantryabout the usefulness of the plough, in the process enabling them toderive surplus production of their own.

In the end, this process was beneficial for both the Brahmins and theKamrupa subalterns, who earned their livelihood only throughcultivation. Plough cultivation assured the commoners a steady supplyof agricultural production, and the Brahmin landlords were assured ofagricultural hands. This ‘power-knowledge relationship’ (usingFoucault’s language) between the ruling elites and the Brahmins fromthe Sanskritized Gangetic-Belt helped in the formation of a caste-based social structure where the Brahmins successfully wielded aposition of importance and secured the non-Brahmin subject’s servicesand allegiance, in return for their knowledge, which was supposed toserve the common good. The historian D. D. Kosambi termed such aprocess as the ‘Feudalism from Below’ (Habib, 2008, p. 86). However,this feudal social order failed to incorporate the different

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indigenous ethnic communities in Kamrupa. In this regard thehistorian P. S. Datta (Datta, 1993, pp. 2-3) suggests,

“At least twenty-seven inscription of this period have beendiscovered so far, most of them being land grants issued infavour of some Brahmins [...] the twenty seven inscriptions thatwere found of the period of three dynasties did not make anymention of the adjoining forest region quite in contradictionwith the pattern observed elsewhere ... thus, the Indian varietyof feudalism of that period operated in Assam only at super-structure level leaving outside of its orbit the most numeroussections of the indigenous population.”

Therefore, the type of feudalism extant in most of contemporary Indiaoperated only at the level of the superstructure in pre-Ahom Assam orKamrupa, with its vast indigenous population left outside itspurview. In this context, it may be mentioned that the process ofboth assimilation and integration between ‘Caste Hindus’ and the‘Other’ numerous sections of people in neighbouring Bengal wasdifferent from that in contemporary Assam. The growth of feudalismand a caste Hindu hierarchical social order had existed in Bengalduring the reign of King Sasanka, and even before the Palas. This waswhy there was no ethnic or ‘Tribal’ pocket noticeable in theheartland of Bengal during the survey of the Mughal Revenue OfficerTodarmal, with ethnic or ‘Tribal Communities’ living only in someperipheral places.

Ahom Rule: Cultural and Socio-economic Changes

Thus, in the pre-Ahom period, the people of Kamrupa kingdom had aloose-knit society. There was considerable distance amongst thefollowers of the ‘Caste Hindu’ and those of the ‘Tribal’ ways oflife. However, this period saw no antagonism between caste Hindus andtheir worthy ‘Other’, the indigenous ethnic people or the ‘Tribals’.Indeed, it is the 600-year Ahom rule and the subsequent colonial rulethat changed the social scenario and helped in the creation of aliminal space, of which the indigenous ethnic communities of Assambecame hapless inhabitants.

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The socio-economic outlook of the Ahoms, who conquered and thensettled in Assam in the early 13th century, was very different fromthe feudal model prevailing in Kamrupi society. Their semi-feudalsocio-economic outlook naturally failed to attract the upper strataof the Kamrupi-Society, which was already Aryanized and imbued withthe feudal ideology of the Brahminical variety. These strata foundpatronage in Naranarayana, the Koch ruler. He undertook the task ofbringing within the feudal fold the ‘Tribals’, or people of non-Aryanized indigenous ethnic communities. In this context, mentionshould be made of Assam’s Vaishnavaite reformer Sankardeva, who alsoreceived patronage from Naranarayana. Sankardeva had a well-devisedprogram, comprising a series of steps, for the absorption of ethniccommunities within the ‘Caste’ fold. In the initial step, Sankardevaconverted his disciples (from various ethnic communities) to‘Saranias’, and thereafter to the Koch community. Through thisconversion to Koch, Sankardeva gave them entry to the lower strata ofthe ‘Caste Hierarchy.’ It also needs to be mentioned that the Ahomking had expelled Sankardeva from his territory; however, the latterwas welcomed back by the Koch king Naranarayana. This should not beconsidered accidental; rather, it manifested the contradictionbetween their respective social and economic philosophies.

The Ahoms brought with them the ‘Paik and Khel’ system, which waspart of their tribal mode of living. This system differentiates theAhom administration from any feudal administrative mechanism ofmedieval times. Till its downfall, the Ahom monarchy retained thistribal system, which delinked production from land revenue.Therefore, one may consider an Ahom king merely a type of advancedtribal chieftain, instead of a king of a well-developed monarchicalsystem. In this system, instead of agricultural produce, physicallabour was accepted as royal revenue. With the exception of thenobles, priests, persons in high social positions, and those engagedin respectable occupations, the entire adult population was liable torender its service to the state as labourers and soldiers. When the‘Paik and Khel’ system was dispersed to different parts of Assam, itgrew more complicated and inconvenient (Gait S. E., Reprint 2003).The social scientist Hiren Gohain has termed the type of feudalism

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practiced by the Ahoms as the ‘Bureaucratic-Feudalism’ (Guha, 1993,p. viii).

At a later stage, when Ahom rulers felt the need to advance towards afeudal direction, the antagonism with the Sankarites had alreadybecome an integral part of the state policy. This was because theappeal of Sankardeva had attracted many ‘Paiks’, who subsequentlyrefused to pay their physical labour in the service of the Ahom king,thereby weakening the backbone of Ahom rule.

At this juncture, the import of ‘Saktism’ by Ahoms from Bengalintroduced a few new aspects in the process of social formation inAssam. This practice was hitherto unknown and totally alien to thedifferent indigenous communities living in this very land. Thispopulation had already learnt to live their life on the basis ofcultural differences with the caste Hindu population.

Saktism helped create an intermediary section of people who wereAryanized by their faith and rituals. People from the priestly classand followers of the Hindu caste system constituted this section.Numerous land grants given by the Ahom king to religiousbeneficiaries, and the transfer of fiscal and juridical rights fromthe ruler to the grantees, converted the latter into landedintermediaries with extensive rights. Available archival documentsindicate that with the advancement of time, these unscrupulous landedintermediaries even closed the doors of religious institutions to themarginalized people of different indigenous ethnic communities.(Introduction of the Temple Entry Bill by Ghanasyam Das on 29February, 1940)

Thus, Saktism brought about a fundamental change in the socio-economic, as well as the political environment during Ahom rule.People from indigenous ethnic communities, however, failed to locateand posit them in this newly emerging environment. From theperspective of the indigenous, non- Aryanized ethnic communities,this process might be considered as the ‘Feudalism from Above’.

This belated attempt on the part of the Ahom monarchy to reorganizesociety along caste lines through Saktism prepared the ground for a

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constant friction between the ‘Feudalism from Above’ and ‘Feudalismfrom Below’, which ultimately contributed to the ruination of theAhom state. Forces like the neo- Vaishnavite movement of Sankardeva,which emerged out of the ‘Feudalism from Below’, offered asylum tothose who deserted the Ahom socio-economic structure of ‘Paik andKhel’. It was specifically the Muttok and Morans, who, as Paiks, wereresponsible for capturing and supplying elephants to the Ahoms (inaddition to other manual services), who sought refuge in theVaishnavite-Satra of Moamaria Mahanta and declined to work under theexploitative system of ‘Paik’. Neo-Vaishnavism taught and encouragedthem to only obey the orders of their teacher or the ‘guru’.Therefore, they ignored the call of the Ahom monarch to work underhim as ‘Pikes’. The Moamarias sang:

“Ek Guru Ek Kheo

Teur Bine Naai Keo” (in Assamese)

It translates into: ‘There is only one teacher and none is abovehim. He is the one who alone deserves salutes from his disciples.’This change in allegiance precipitated the popular uprising known asthe ‘Moamaria Uprising’, which ultimately contributed to thedestruction of the Ahom monarchy.

Saktism, Neo-Vaishnavism, and the Caste Order

The conflict between these above discussed two patterns of feudalismencouraged the ethnic societies to stay in distance from the both.Subsequently, an atmosphere emerged that encouraged them to embracetheir own languages, customs and gods more rigidly than ever.Although operational differences existed between both the types offeudal structure, for the ethnic societies, they represented nothingbut a Sanskritized or caste-based social order. Outwardly, the importof Saktism may be seen as an attempt on the part of the Ahom monarchyto replace the influence of the neo-Vaishnavites. However, it alsoimplies that both religious practices represent only the Sanskritisedcultural values that advocate a Caste-based social order. Guhastates:

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“Initial attitude of the Ahom kings toward the Neo-Vaishnavismwas not favourable and in many instances its extent wasextremely hostile. But, with the advancement of time socio-economic conditions had been changed and the Ahom monarch feltthe weight of this socio-religious movement. Therefore, theytoo, in the later stage, offered royal patronage to it but in arestricted way. They by then understood that Neo-Vaishnavism wasin fact a comparatively ‘Advanced Feudal philosophy’ in thecontemporary Assam and it could play a vital role in the processof detribalization (Guha, 1993, p. 11).”

Although, in essence, the Neo-Vaishnavism of Sankardeva isegalitarian, it strictly operates even today only within themechanism of Caste. It accepts disciples from the indigenous ethnicsocieties through an elaborate mechanism that first “purifies” thecultural practices of the otherwise animist disciples. Only afterundergoing these rites of passage could a disciple enter the Caste-fold to become ‘Koch’ – a low social position in the caste hierarchy.Colonial administrators commented that Neo-Vaishnavism to a very highextent carried forward the process of ‘detribalization’ throughconversion (Gait E. , 1892, p. 225).

This was an unfavourable socio-economic situation where theaborigines of Assam, in an attempt to enjoy a few social and economicprivileges, had been compelled to follow the route of upward socialmobility. The Caste-based social order and its attendant culturalpractices were alien to these indigenous ethnic communities. Saktismno way posed as a better appeal of acceptance for them. Both the Neo-Vaishnavism and the Saktism had only assigned these communities a lowsocial position. People of these communities had been placed in sucha space, which anthropologist Victor Turner termed as the ‘liminalspace’ (terming the condition of ‘Liminality’). Under suchconditions, as Turner states, inferiors take on the rank and style oftheir superiors, sometimes even to the extent of arraying themselvesin a hierarchy that mimics the secular hierarchy of the so-calledbetters (Turner, Reprint 2008, pp. 167-168). This socio-economicatmosphere created a forced situation of ‘assimilation’, and failed

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to create the natural conditions for a two-way ‘Social Integration’.Thus, history provides us with ample evidence to show that ethnicdiscontent in Assam is far more rooted in its past than we are readyto accede, and Caste, there in, played a very crucial role.Therefore, as Datta remarked, in 1826, when colonial Britishofficials established their rule in Assam, the socio-economic andpolitical atmosphere was characterized by the coexistence of strongpockets of ethnic population, as well as a feudal influence with itscorresponding ethnic connotation.ii

However, it was the colonial British administration which, through asystematic process, further stratified the loosely knit society ofAssam along ethnographic lines. The British administration shaped thesocial, economic and political conditions of Assam according to itsown convenience, which is on many counts responsible for the presentethnocentric mess. As the main purpose behind the colonialadministration in Assam was to exact profits to the maximum possibleextent, there was no question of attempting to reduce the social andeconomic distances between communities in nineteenth-century Assam(at the time of its annexation). The colonial administration merelywanted to reorganize the caste-divided old social system in a formmore conducive to its existence and endurance. Henry Cotton was ofthe opinion that colonialism in India set out to reconstitute casteas a necessary complement to social order and governmental authority,and to formulate it as a new kind of civil society for the colonialstate. Likewise, colonial administrative officer cum anthropologistRisley opined:

“[T]he problem of the future is not to destroy caste, but tomodify it, preserve its distinctive conceptions, and graduallyplace them upon a social instead of a supernatural basis”.(Risley, 1909, p. 282)

By the late 19th century, seizing upon and magnifying differencesamong different categories of colonial subjects, an exhaustive listof the ‘Tribes’ of India was being prepared. This was part of theprocesses by which British colonialism ordered and separated groupsinto ‘Tribes’ and ‘Castes’ within a discursive framework, built

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around ideas about savages and primitives, and about economiesorganized around hunting, pastoralist, agriculture and commerce.Societies were ranked in relation to each other, situated above allin relation to time, or more specifically, in relation to the moderntime epitomized by Europe.

The specific ‘time’ that societies occupied, the question of how‘advanced’ they were, was measured by various criteria, ranging fromtechnology, habitat, and modes of subsistence, climatic variations orracial types. The ‘heterogeneous’ ethnic situation in Assam providedan array of additions to this ethnographic classification, as theregion’s peoples could now be categorized along a continuum, rangingall the way from the ‘Civilized Caste Hindu’ to the ‘Savage Head-Hunter’. The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 has to beseen in this larger context, in terms of creating a new internalfrontier for the British India. In consonance with the spirit of this‘Regulation’, the colonial British administration created an InnerLine along the Assam foot-hill tracts. Remarking on the utility ofsuch a provision, Alexander Mackenzie (Mackenzie, 1884, pp. 89-90)said that the inhabitants of the tracts beyond would manage their ownaffairs with only such interference on the part of the frontierofficers in their political capacity as may be considered advisablewith the view to establishing a personal influence for good among thechiefs and the tribes.

Thus, the administrative use of colonial anthropology in Assamstratified the already loose-knit society along ‘Caste-Tribe’ lineson the one hand, and on the other, paved the way for the emergence ofa new and conglomerated identity of the people of differentindigenous ethnic communities of Assam – the ‘Tribal-Identity’.Colonialism helped in the formation of this identity on the basis of‘differences’ between cultures and newly defined roots of origin. Thehistorian Jayeeta Sharma (Sharma, 2005, pp. 45-49) has meticulouslydescribed this process:

“A piquant situation emerged whereby the Assam plains began tobe regarded as an extension of a larger Indic schema, while thehills were constructed as an externality, given their kinship to

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the Southeast Asian peripheries beyond. It was with some suchnotion that colonial ethnography built up its theories of racemovements of tribes such as the Bodo into Assam, fromunspecified Chinese territory. By the late 19th century, therewere frequent assertions by Caste Assamese Hindu, Muslim andSikh groups of migration from Indic homelands in Kanauj, Gaur(Bengal) and elsewhere. Such origin myths among these plains-elites point to a sense of identity which was beginning to bebased upon a desire for Indic ritual status and territorialaffiliation. Orientalist theories of a racial differentiationbetween ‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Aryan’ could now be deployed to imaginea rigid boundary between ‘Caste’ and ‘Tribe’ populations, withthe former seen as high-status migrants from ‘Aryavarta’,residing amongst ‘Mongoloid’ races.”

In this way, through a historical process under the alien rule and ininfluence of the colonial anthropology heterogeneous and multiethnicsociety of Assam had been sharply stratified where ‘each opposing theother’ two new forces of society- ‘Castes’ and ‘Tribes’ emerged.Initial non-antagonistic nature of contradiction between these twoforces got sufficient ingredients throughout the colonial rule and achanging socio-economic scenario in the post-colonial Assam to becomean antagonistic one.

In place of a Conclusion:

Few examples where caste plays the central role or that of a catalystwill be sufficient for the understanding of the theme of this paperwhich will at the same time also act as self explanatory conclusion.

a) The Introduction of the Temple Entry Bill:Introduction of the temple entry Act, 1940, deserve specialmention to explain how in the then stratified society of Assampowerful Caste-Hindus socially marginalized the ethnicpopulations and placed them in an inferior position along withthe Scheduled Castes. People of different ethnic groups and socalled lower castes had been barred from entering religiousshrines during the colonial rule in Assam and it helped

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formation of so much controversy that after Madras, a billnamely ‘Temple Entry Bill, 1940’ had been introduced in AssamLegislative Assembly by Mr. Ghanasyam Das. In the debates, regarding the need of this Bill, all the membersof the assembly across the part line unequivocally supported itand reached the consensus that such kind of act was need of thehour to arrest the increasing tension between the people of socalled upper strata or the Caste-Hindus and the ethniccommunities. Introducer of the Bill, Ghanasyam Das, M.L.A.,distinctively remarked:

“[I] beg to move that the Assam temple Entry Bill, 1940 betaken into consideration. Though this Bill is new in Assam,it is not new in India. The province of Madras has seenthis Bill turned into law and it is in action in some partof that province................ I bring this Bill toremove the last stigma attached to the conservatism inreligion in Assam.[....] Sir, formerly temples of Assam were open to all. Inthe formation of society and religion in Assam, the socalled depressed and backward classes, who have now noentry into a temple, have to labour an equal extent if notmore with any other so called high-classes. Four hundredyears ago Mahapurush Sankardeva was quite alive to thisfact and it is why even a ‘Javan’ like Jayhari Ata (aKarbi), a Miri like Bolai Ata, a Bhot (Bhutia) like Damudar–Ata were given equal and full religious rights with hisother disciples. [.....] These aristocrats were none othersthan the Sabayats, Mohunts (Mahantas) or the Bhakatas.Formerly, these people were at the service of the temples.Niskar-grant or Nis-khiraj grant was made in the name ofthese classes for the maintenance of the temples by theAhom Kings or the Kings of Cooch Bihar and these grants hadbeen accepted by the British raj later on. These grants areprofitable income to the temples which means to theseclasses. From the stand point of the religion and equal

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rights –the common rights of humanity it is notjustified....[so,] the temple gates should be open forall.”

The quoted speech itself acts as self explanatory. One way itexplains how, by then, in a historical process and conditioned bythe presence of colonial rule social as well economic sphere ofAssam was to a very high extent stratified on caste line. On theother, it may be noticed that by the nomenclature ‘Javan’ that hasbeen used to mean some disciples of Sankardeva from ethniccommunities, the introducer of the ‘Temple Entry Bill, 1940’, in aspontaneous manner projected ‘Tribes’ as worthy ‘Other’ of the‘Sanskritized’ or the ‘Caste-Hindu’ population of Assam. Thenomenclature ‘Javan’ does not mean ‘what the ethnic populationare’. Rather, it means ‘what they are not’-that they are anythingbut the Sanskritized or Caste-Hindus.

b) Caste Identification and the ‘Naming of Village’:

How in a historical process ‘Tribes’ emerged as worthy ‘Other’ ofthe ‘Caste’ may be find through the naming pattern of villages inmany places of Assam. From the field data it is found that manyplaces of Assam where predominantly people of different ethniccommunities live, Caste-people named their villages by using theprefix-‘Hindu’. Therefore, one may find names like ‘Hindu-BengaliVillage’ amongst the Karbi populated villages in present SonitpurDistrict or simply ‘Hindu Villages’ in the Mising dominated manyareas of Lakhimpur District. Same can be found in the Sadia-Sub-Division of Tinsukia District also. It is to be mentioned that mostof such villages had been established during the pre-Colonialperiod and few during the Colonial-rule. Though number of such‘Hindu Villages’ are meagre in number, yet, it helps one understandabout how polarization of Assam’s rural society on the Caste-linehad been started since the pre-British period and solidified duringthe Colonial British rule by getting ‘Revenue-Village’ status. Fora vivid understanding of this process a GIS-Map showing some Hinduvillages (in Red-Colour) is attached below.

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Map-Courtesy (GIS): Dr Sarat Phukan, Associate Professor, Department ofGeological-Science, Gauhati University

c) Projection of Social-Stratification by the Museum:

How caste is deeply embedded and plays a very central role in theprocess of social stratification can be well understood through avisit to the State Museum, Assam at Guwahati. The Museum isconsidered in general conscience mirror of a society. Throughdisplay it speaks history and social change and development of aparticular society. For that, what has been projected by the StateMuseum of Assam deserve special observation when one tries tounderstand Assam’s process of social formation and its changes indifferent dimensions. The State Museum at Guwahati projects thatsocially people of Assam is divided into two distinct differentgroups. It is difficult to have any idea of a pluralistic,integrated social atmosphere under the phrase ‘Assamese Society’from the way of display of different objects in this museum. By the

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term ‘Assamese Society’, ‘Assamese-Village or ‘House of an Assamesepeasant’ it has simply projected Caste-Hindu village and socio-cultural life. One can’t find any place of the life and culture ofdifferent indigenous people in this so called image of the ‘GreaterAssamese-Society’. Showing exclusion and socio culturalmarginalization, the State museum has placed socio-cultural life ofthe people of different ethnic communities of Assam completely in aseparate section that is named as the ‘Ethnographic Gallery’. Sofar no hue and cry has been made against such a way of projectionby neither any so called progressive intellectual and not by anysocial organizations that help one to understand ‘what we are not’instead of ‘what we are’. Rather, it may be said that ourcollective memory recognizes the very fact of social stratificationthat has been projected through the Assam State Museum. Therefore,on the basis of difference intellectuals of both the sections-Caste-Hindus and Ethnic-Communities do not feel uncomfortable withit. It reminds saying of the Post Gramscian-Stuart Hall that‘identification-once secured, does not obliterate difference.’ (Hall, 1996, pp. 16-17).

d) Opposition of the ‘Assamese Identity’ by different ‘Ethnic-Literary Bodies’ of Assam:

In a meeting of the ‘Sahitya Sabhas (literary bodies) of indigenouspeople of Assam’iii held in the Hagjer Bhawan, Ganeshguri, Guwahati-6, opposing to the ‘Definition of Assamese’ as it was put forwardedby the historical ‘Assam Accord, 1985’ two important resolutionshad been adopted on the 30th September, 2005. This meeting waspresided by Brajendra Kumar Brahma, President of the Bodo SahityaSabha and representatives of the ‘Karbi Lamet Amei’, ‘MisingSahitya Sabha’, ‘Rabha Sahitya Sabha’ and the ‘Tiwa Sahitya Sabha’were present in it. The resolutions were:

1) Since the ethnic groups like Bodo, Mising, Karbi, Rabha, Tiwaetc. have their own identity with distinctive language, culture,heritage and historical background, the word ‘Assamese’ used inthe Clause No.-6 of the Assam Accord, 1985 is too ambiguous toinclude the communities mentioned above in it, therefore, the

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word ‘Assamese’ be replaced by the phrase ‘Indigenous People ofAssam’.

2) Today’s meeting feels the necessity to form a common platform ofthe ‘Sahitya Sabhas of Indigenous People of Assam’ with a viewto promote, develop and protect the language and culturalheritage of Indigenous People of Assam. (Brahma, 2005)

Further, in 2008, by a joint press statement on behalf of the sevenethnic Socio-Cultural Organizations’ signatories Khor Singh Teronand Khagen Ingti stated that the definitions of ‘Assamese’ (asadopted by the State Cabinet and the Assam Accord) certainly wouldcreate confusion and room for conflict. To avoid such confusion andconflict, it is advisable to replace the word ‘Assamese people’with the phrase ‘Indigenous People of Assam’ as proposed by the‘Sanmilita Sahitya Sabha Manch’, Assam.’ (Teron, 2008)

In their personal interviews ethnic-intellectuals like Chandra SingKro and Khagen Ingti-respectve president and secretary of the KarbiCultural Society (KCS), Dharam Singh Teron, Folklorist and ex-leader of the Autonomous State Demand Commitee (ASDC), Rimal Amchi,President of Tribal Youth League expressed that the literaryinclusive definition of the ‘Assamese’ by the both Assam StateCabinet, 1985iv and the Assam Accord, 1985, in fact is an attemptof the Caste-Hindu Assamese to impose their dictates upon thepeople of different marginalized ethnic communities.

Thus, the whole episode of controversy related to the definition of‘Assamese’ implies that ignoring and without addressing the issuesemerged from the Caste-dimensions therein, all such attempts willsimply invite chaos and confusion in the heterogeneous, poly-ethnicsociety of Assam.

e) Opposition to the candidature of a Member of Parliament (M.P.):

Manifestation of the Caste-Tribe contradiction may be seen in avery acute manner in the latest controversy over the candidature ofthe Naba Kumar Sarania, an ex-ULFA militant from the KokrajharParliamentary Constituency in the election held in 2004. To bementioned, Kokrajhar is one of the hot beds of ethnic tensions that

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have been successful to draw the media attention due to the fragilenature of law and order situation. As the Kokrajhar parliamentaryconstituency is reserved solely for the Scheduled Tribe candidate,therefore, after the election result opposition came from differentethnic bodies of Assam. Argument of those who opposed Mr. Sarania’scandidature put forwarded their notion before the media that thoughthe former had mentioned himself as Kachari- a Scheduled Tribe onthe papers he submitted before the Election Commission. Accordingto those who are in opposition of Mr. Sarania, in fact, hisacceptance of Caste Identity as ‘Sarania’ disqualify him to contestfrom a constituency reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. Because the‘Saranias’,v as archival documents and Census describes are noneother but those people of Kachari community who had been absorbedby the Neo-Vaishnavism in to the Caste-fold through conversion fromtheir old practice of animist ethnic rites or tribal religious andcultural values. As the ‘Tribe’ is the worthy other of the ‘Caste’,therefore, ‘Deserter of a Tribe’, according to a section of theethnic intellectuals, should not be allowed to contest any electionor enjoy any office of influence and profit that isconstitutionally reserved only for the Scheduled Tribes. Thisincident manifests how Caste is deeply embedded in the latestethnocentric polemics of Assam.

The examples discussed above unequivocally points out that Caste isdeeply embedded in the process of social formation of Assam. Itsmanifestation may be different from the rest of India, but content isalmost same. Therefore, ignoring Caste-dimensions, no strategy toarrest the process of ethnocentric discontentment might see successin Assam. Unless and until the policy makers take necessary steps toeradicate the evils like socio-economic and political disparity andthe causes that furthers the process of marginalization along withthe caste based stratification of the society, possibility of findinga lasting solution of the ethnocentric problems will always remain asquestionable in Assam.

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References:

Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.

Bordoloi, M. (2014, May 17). Impact of Colonial Anthropology on Identity Politics and Conflicts in Assam. Economic and Political Weekly, XLIX(20), 47-54.

Brahma, B. K. (2005). Meeting of the Sahitya Sabhas of Indigenous People of Assam. Guwahati: Bodo Sahitya Sabha.

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter. London: Routledge.

Datta, P. (1993). Autonomy Movements in Assam (1st ed.). New Delhi: Omsons Publications.

Derrida, J. (1981). Positions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dirks, N. B. (2010). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of the Modern India. Delhi, India: Permanent Black.

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Sharma, J. (2012). Empire's garden: Assam and the making of India. Ranikhet: PermanantBlack.

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iEnd notes:

See the author’s notes on Orthography and Usage in Sharma J. (2012) Empire’s Garden: Assam and the making of India, Ranikhet: Permanent Black.

ii See introduction of the P.S. Datta edited (1993) Autonomy Movements in Assam.

iii The heading of the meeting was mentioned in the official document as quoted herewhich indicate that the ‘indigenous-people’ has differences from the Caste-Hindu Assamese and rest of the people living in Assam.

iv The Assam State Cabinet in 1985 adopted a resolution defining the term ‘Assamese’ that ‘it shall include all indigenous Tribal, Non-Tribal, and local linguistic population living permanently within the four boundaries of Assam or allgenuine citizens who have accepted the local culture of Assam as their own.’ v See the ‘Report on the Census of Assam-1881’, P-162; Directorate of Archive,Dispur. About the ‘Saranias’ it has been mentioned here that “When a Kachari takes‘Saran’ i.e. discards certain of his old habits and adopts Hindu usages he becomesa ‘Sarania’, and after some generations his descendents particularly if well to docan, in part of Kamrupa become ‘Koch’.”