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The Fragmented ‘Indigenes’: Travails of Becoming Bengali in Modern Assam

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Indigeneity, Development and Sustainability

Part of the book series: Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development ((DTSD,volume 18))

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Abstract

The chapter begins with a brief outline of how Partition of 1947 constituted the Bengalis of Barak valley into a community distinct from the Bengalis of both East Pakistan/Bangladesh and West Bengal. As most of Sylhet went to East Pakistan thanks to the referendum held in July 1947, there was huge influx of mainly Bengali Hindus who had settled predominantly in the three districts of the valley. As the rest of India was celebrating Independence, Partition is said to have ‘robbed their independence’ and closed all other alternative possibilities. One may say that they were ‘free’ in the sense that they had no language to ‘articulate their unfreedom’. The second part of the chapter reflects on the paradox that they came to face in their newly constituted land. In the face of this closure, much of the politics of the Bengalis flows inwards, engages in the project of making of their collective self and takes refuge in it. The chapter draws our attention to three major—albeit overlapping—projects of self-making in this connection.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from original non-English sources are by the author.

  2. 2.

    Unless kept within quotes, State’ with ‘S’ in capital will refer to the States in the subcontinent (like India, East Pakistan/Bangladesh) while ‘state’ with ‘s’ in lower case is used to refer to any of the states within the Indian Union.

  3. 3.

    The Commission was formed to recommend the reorganisation of states within the Indian Union.

  4. 4.

    Living in one place for generations.

  5. 5.

    The largest literary body of Assam, with its branches spreading across India and abroad.

  6. 6.

    Formed in 1985 as a culmination of the anti-foreigners’ upsurge (1979–1985).

  7. 7.

    Such a proposal was made by eminent leaders of Bengal like Sarat Chandra Bose and Fazlul Haque.

  8. 8.

    All quotations from Bhuban Mohan Debsharma’s address (heretofore referred as Debsharma 1916) are taken from Kar (1999: 154–171) in which the full text of the address is available verbatim.

  9. 9.

    For an understanding of the role of Barak Upatyaka Banga Sahitya o Sanskriti Sammelan, see especially, Saha (2022: 68–72).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India

    Samir Kumar Das

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  1. Samir Kumar Das
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Correspondence to Samir Kumar Das .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. UGC Malaviya Mission Teacher Training Centre (formerly UGC-HRDC), University of North Bengal, Raja Ram Mohanpur, West Bengal, India

    Anjan Chakrabarti

  2. Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Gorky Chakraborty

  3. Department of Political Science, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

    Anup Shekhar Chakraborty

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Das, S.K. (2024). The Fragmented ‘Indigenes’: Travails of Becoming Bengali in Modern Assam. In: Chakrabarti, A., Chakraborty, G., Chakraborty, A.S. (eds) Indigeneity, Development and Sustainability. Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development, vol 18. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1436-0_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1436-0_14

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-97-1436-0

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