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Home , Assamese language, Assamese people, Bongal, Brahmaputra Valley, Jorhat, Lumding

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY July 30, 1960

Assam Disturbances: Kheda Again K C Chakravarti

THE recent unfortunate happen­ staged. Many of them own cinema sembly Congress Party when all ings in the houses where pictures are non-Assamese members opposed it. (known as Valley) of the shown. Bengali dailies from Cal­ Before the matter came up for final State of Assam remind one of the cutta enjoy a large circulation in decision by the Assam Con­ organised by these towns. In some of them Ben­ gress Committee, Shri Chaliha made the Muslim League regime in pre- gali schools are flourishing well. an announcement in the Assembly, Independence , The State Many are thriving as explaining why at this stage Assa­ Language agitation was started by doctors, lawyers, teachers, clerks mese could not be made the State job-seekers in Assam, and the force and occasionally as traders. language. The stand taken by Shri underlying the agitation is essen­ Chaliha was bold and wise, but, as tially economic. In the oil refinery DIRECTED AGAINST NON-ASSAMESE I had indicated in The Economic at Gauhati many non-Assamiyas, These Bengalis in and Weekly of May 7, 1960, it did not not necessarily outsiders, are hold­ the Bengali employees of the oil seem likely that Shri Chaliha would ing good positions. In the Brah­ refinery at Gauhati in particular be able to control his followers for maputra bridge construction, under have of late become objects of hos­ long, the forces against him being a private Indian firm, most of the tility and humiliation. In the past too strong. engineers and technicians are non- they used to be jeered at and some­ Assamese. In the railways, which times even assaulted and stabbed.. To put pressure on Shri Chaliha, is an Indian Government enterprise, The culprits, very often, would be however, the agitators intensified many Indians of non-Assamiya students. They were being incited the movement, and the Assam Pra­ origin are employed. These non- by Assamese job-seekers and pro­ desh Congress Committee eventually Assamiya Indians in general and tected by college and university passed a resolution in favour of the Bengalis in particular are an authorities. The local police often Assamese, non-Assamese members eyesore to Assamiyas. felt helpless; and just before the opposing it. As the non- agitation started, the areas of Assam began to protest, NOT BIRDS OF PASSAGE Inspector-General of Police had on the agitators, backed by all sec­ Outside Assam, an Assamese is one occasion to come with his tions of the Assamese public, resort­ one who lives in Assam whatever police force from to arrest ed to violence and intimidation try- may be his tongue. In a student from the University area. ing successfully to coerce the Cha­ Assam, however, Assamiyas or As­ liha Government to call an emer­ The word Bongal is used in a samese are those who speak Assa- gency session of the Assembly for wide sense in Assam. It does not miya and live in the six of introducing the Bill. refer to Bengalis alone. It em­ the Brahmaputra Valley. The non- ASSAMESE UNANIMOUS braces all outsiders. The move­ Assamese are those natives of The way in which the agitation ment known as Bongal Kheda spon­ Assam who live in the remaining was organised reminds us of the sored by Assamese job-seekers to five districts of Assam and whose Calcutta riots staged under Muslim drive out non-Assamese competi­ mother tongue is not Assamiya or League Government in the pre-lnde- tors, assumed the air of a dignified Assamese. They include the Ben­ pendence period. On the language and respectable agitation when the galis of Cachar and , the issue, which practically aims at Assam Sahitya Sabha demanded that -speaking tea plantation driving the Bengalis from the Assamese must by law be made the labourers and the hill people like Assam Valley, all Assamese are exclusive State language for the the Khasis of Shillong. Besides unanimous. Congress and non- entire territory of Assam. The these natives of Assam who are not belonging to all Congress leaders, politicians of all birds of passage, there are many shades of opinion, who love their shades of opinion, Rightists, Leftists, Bengalis, mostly from East Bengal mother tongue more than anything , Muslims, poets, priests, men who have settled in all the impor­ else like most other people in , of letters, sober educationists, un- tant towns of the Brahmaputra at once began to support the move­ ruly students—all have wonder­ Valley. Some are displaced per­ ment. fully cooperated. The town of sons from Last Bengal. Many of Gauhati was divided into a number them have cleared jungles, opened CHALIHA'S MOVE OPPOSED of zones. Zonal leaders were sta­ up communications, started culti­ Many of Chief Minister B P tioned with their student followers vation and rehabilitated themselves Chaliha's political and personal in each zone. If the police entered in the interior of the Brahmaputra rivals knew that this could not be one zone, the other zone would be­ Valley. done but they supported the move come active. In fact some Govern­ In the towns of Gauhati. , knowing that Shri Chaliha would go ment officials too- Assamese and Nowgong, , , Tin- down in prestige and popularity in non-Assamese—have made their own sukia etc, almost half the population the Assam Valley. The issue of contribution, each according to his consists of Bengalis. They have their the State language was discussed at capacity, either through active parti­ own clubs where Bengali plays are a meeting of members of the As- cipation or through inaction. 1193 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY July 30, 1960

The strongest opposition to the Deputy Inspector-General of Police against Bengalis, the Assamese lead­ Assamese came from the Bengalis who was there was also not spared. ers made use of students without any of Cachar and the hill people from These two officers happened to be scruple. Congress leaders of Cachar, the four Hill Districts of Assam. Bengalis. Instances of many other who are opposing the adoption of A conference of Bengalis and hill Bengali officers, including police Assamese, were also freely employ­ people, held at . vehemently authorities, being assaulted and ing the students though not a single protested against the Official Lan­ stabbed have been reported. After case of stabbing death or arson has guage Bill, but what is astonishing this event, the police opened fire, been reported from Cachar, is that the Assamese did no violence and a student was killed. His body LIFE WILL BE INTOLERABLE to them. Victims of the Assamese was allowed to be carried by bus The State Language agitation aims violence were the Bengalis of the from Gauhati to Sibsagar, a distance at two things. One is to squeeze out Brahmaputra Valley, not of Cachar of about 200 miles. Along this long the non-Assamese from the Brahma­ and the Hill Districts. These Ben­ route excitement and violence pre­ putra Valley. In this they will be galis of the towns of Gauhati. Tez- vailed unchecked. For a number of successful. The Assamese sentiment pur, Jorhat, Nowgong. Dibrugarh. days law and order had completely being what it is, it likely that the etc. were living there for long and broken down in the Assam Valley. non-Assamese will find life intolera­ could he said to be well-settled. STUDENTS MADE USE OF ble in the Assam Valley. To a non- Knowing the Assamese language. Bengali clubs and schools were Assamese postal clerk, railway sta­ they had openly and publicly lent burnt. At one place, the houses of tion master or an employee of the their support to Assamese, Yet some six hundred Bengalis in one Central Government, life in the they were assaulted and stabbed, compact area were looted and set fire Assam Valley, subject to hate and their houses burnt and their pro­ to. It is difficult to believe that such ridicule on all sides, will be worse perties looted. Even their women large-scale violence could have been than what it is in Pakistan. He can were not spared. So. at bottom, let loose without cooperation from never feel that he is living in a State it was really not the question of various sections of the Assamese which forms part of India. adopting Assamese as the State people, including the Assamese police. language. It was the old Bongal The second aim of the State Lan­ In season and out of season poli­ Kheda movement in a new form. guage agitation is to impose Assa­ tical leaders, both Congress and non- The Bengalis living in the Assam mese on the non-Assamese of the five Congress, advise students not to par­ Valley and thriving in various districts of Assam. In this there will ticipate in active politics. Here on walks of life were to be driven out be no success. Even with the mani­ the language issue and in the drive and their places taken by the pulation of census operations, the Assamese.

VIOLENCE NOT CHECKED The method adopted in all these acts of violence and intimidation was also like that of the pre-Inde­ pendence Muslim League Govern­ ment of Bengal. In the town of Gauhati as elsewhere, the Bengalis live in compact areas in large num­ bers. They are really not so help- less. Once the Assamese mob at­ tacked them, they would ably de­ fend themselves. When the attack was repulsed, the police would in­ tervene. The Bengalis who defend­ ed themselves would be arrested. Section 144 and curfew would be imposed. When the Bengalis were attacked the police would remain inactive but when they repulsed the attack and became violent the police would become active. It is curious that when violent attacks were organised on a mass scale by the Assamese leaders, not a single Assamese was kept under detention! There are Bengali officers and Bengali police but they are helpless. and they have been assaulted and stabbed. While Section 144 was in operation at Gauhati, a mob of some 100 persons entered the Dis­ trict Magistrate's bungalow, drag­ ged him out add stabbed him. The 1194 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY July 30, 1960

Assamese are only about 55 per cent an insult and an act of force which strong, and they will not stop till of the total population. A State, will be vehemently opposed. The they have made Assamese the official according to the States Reorganisa­ Bengalis of Cachar may be ignored language, whatever the cost or con­ tion Commission, can be regarded as but not the hill tribes. The Naga sequence. In that case the Assamese unilingual if 70 per cent or more of Hills formed part of Assam who number some forty in all, the population speak one language. but the people there have felt pro­ and who live only in the six districts According to this principle, Assam voked to rise in revolt. There is no of the Brahmaputra or Assam Valley, cannot be unlingual. doubt that if similarly roused, the will have to seek a separate State of To impose Assamese on the people remaining four Hill Districts too will their own, of Cachar or of the four Hill Districts follow suit. Silchar, where, except for State Government The Assamese feeling for their employees no Assamese lives, will be language is, however, extremely July 7. Assam Disturbances: II Tragedy of Political Tactlessness P C IN the present territory of Assam as the State Language of Assam for by the Assamese, openly supported (excluding the Naga Hills) fear of offending the people of the cause of the Assamese. But in Assamese is the mother, tongue of Cachar and Hill Ditsricts, particu­ areas where the non-Assamese are in about 57 per cent of the popula­ larly when adequate safeguards are majority, (.g. the Hill Districts, tion. Among the minority language provided for the minorities. If the and few railway groups, the Bengalis account for present boundary of Assam stands towns like , Mariani) or­ about 19 per cent of the total popu­ in the way of giving the Assamese ganised efforts were made to thwart lation. Barring Cachar district, language its rightful status, it would the move. At all places students took the Bengalis constitute only a be proper to change the boundary as the most active part. small proportion of the popula­ has been done in other parts of The opposition to Assamese came tion. Spoken Bengali of the Cachar India. mostly from the Bengalis who con­ district is as different from Bengali Although there has been a persis­ stitute the most vocal and educated as it is from Assamese. There are tent demand from the Assamese pub- section among the non,-Assamese. scores of dissimilar tribal languages lie for recognition of Assamese as Although most of the Hill Districts or , but none of these is the State Language since 1950. those (except Mikir Hills) opposed Assa­ spoken by more than 5 per cent of in authority tried to shelve the issue. mese and favoured English, their the population. In certain hill dis­ The Congress Party tended to ignore opposition was not so bitter. The tricts, including the Naga Hills and the demand and others, to exploit Hill people, in general, did not or­ the NEFA, Assamese is the princi­ the situation. Delay in deciding the ganise any meetings or demonstra­ pal or only medium of inter-tribal issue caused frustration and anger tions to oppose the move, mainly or inter-regional communication. among the Assamese and encouraged because of the fact that they were Much has been said about the opposition from the non-Assamese, more interested in achieving a se­ reliability of the census figures of particularly Bengalis. parate hill state of their own than 1951. It is possible that the census in frittering away their energies on UNWISE STATEMENT figures of 1931 were cooked up the language controversy. under the guidance and active co­ The leader of the Opposition in CONCESSION TO MINORITY GROUPS operation of Bengali officers who the Assam Assembly moved a reso­ Owing to the pressure of public were at the helm of affairs at the lution in the last budget session for opinion, the Assam Pradesh Con­ district level at that time. If Ben­ declaring Assamese as the State Lan­ gress Committee had to adopt a re­ galis outnumber the Assamese even guage. Many Congressmen favoured solution defining its polity. The in the Brahmaputra Valley, it is the move. The resolution was talked Pradesh Congress Executive met in surprising that they are subject to out. Chief Minister Chaliha declared April last and decided that Assamese violence from the Assamese! The on the floor of the House on March should be adopted as the State Lan­ question of the accuracy of the 15, 1960 that the demand to make guage in the Brahmaputra Valley 1931 and 1951 census figures was Assamese the State Language must forthwith and that the status quo considered by the States Reorgani­ come from the non-Assamese. This should be maintained in the rest of sation Commission, and more re- impractical and unwise statement was Assam. Assamese was to be adopted liance was placed by it on the the cause of all the subsequent hap­ in Cachar and the Hill Districts only 1951 figures, penings in connection with the lan­ guage agitation. Meetings and de­ when the people there were pre­ Bengali has been declared as the monstrations were held all over the pared for it. The APCC resolution State Language for the Darjeeling State either to support or oppose the thus gave the maximum possible District of where it is claims of the Assamese language. concession to the minority language spoken only by about 16 per cent of Non-Assamese residents (including groups. the population. So there should be Bengalis) of the Brahmaputra Valley, In May 1960. Chief Minister no hesitation in declaring Assamese where they are greatly outnumbered Chaliha indicated that Government 1195