Are Bangla-speaking Assamese Bangladeshis?
By MOHD ABDUL RAHIM QURAISHI
The violence which erupted in July 2012 and displaced about five hundred thousand people has not yet been brought under control. The BJP and other Hindutva parties, for obvious reason of their objective to compel Indian Muslims to come to the ‘mainstream’ otherwise to throw them out of their native land India, are strenuously propagating that the Bangla-speaking Muslims are not Indian but infiltrators and intruders from Bangladesh. The other people and media generally believe that settlers from Bangladesh are creating problems for indigenous Bodos and other Assamese. Due to these assumptions, the plight of the victims and violence committed against them is not touching hearts of the majority of Indian people and not creating waves of sympathy in them. There is little effort to look into the history of Assam and to know the facts and the figures to scrutinise the assumption. Here, these are dealt with on the basis of official records.
EARLY HISTORY
In ancient days Assam was known as Kampura. A famous Chinese pilgrim had visited Kampura in about 640 C.E and “found it occupied by a race with a dark yellow complexion, small in stature and fierce in appearance, but upright and studious”.
According to a widely prevailing legend, Kama, the Hindu god of love, once made an effort to arouse passion in the heart of the Hindu ascetic god, Siva. The meditative Siva opened the third eye in his forehead, and fire leaped and destroyed Kama. Siva later let Kama be revived, and the land where Kama got back his form (rupa) came to be called Kamarupa. The Hindu goddess Kanaksha, or Kannakhia, or Sakti, is the consort of Siva and the presiding deity of the Tantric cult. This cult had been prevalent in the obscure, ancient days in Assam.
The Surma valley, now called the Barak valley comprising the regions of Cachar and Karimganj, had been independent of Kamarupa and mostly under the rulers of East Bengal. Similarly, the southern part of Goalpara and Dhubri had been mostly under Bengal rule before the British included these areas and the Surra valley in the province of Assam.
The Ahoms, a sub-tribe of the Shan Mongolian tribe also known as Tais, migrated to the upper Assam which was at that time being ruled by different rulers in different parts called Barabhuinyas.
Later, in the 14th century, a kingdom called Kamta was founded. In the 15th century a line of Khen Kings rose to power in the same tract of the country (Lower Assam). The third and the last of this line, Nilamber, was overthrown in 1498 by Hussain Shah of Bengal. A few years later, Biswas Singh laid the foundation of the Koch Kingdom with its capital in Koch-Bihar. His son, Nar Narayan, extended his kingdom up to the present Meghalaya and attacked Cachar where he was defeated by Isa Khan, the Chief of Sonar Gaon in East Bengal.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, the valley of Brahmaputra had been ruled by the Ahoms in the upper Assam and the Koches in the lower Assam. Sometimes the Ahoms pushed the Koches out of Kamarupa, and then the Koches regained their lost territories. The third force influencing the region was that of the Muslim kings or the governors of Bengal who sent expeditions to the valley but never succeeded in establishing their rule. In 1581, the Koch kingdom was divided into two parts, western and eastern Koch; after the defeat by Isa Khan the western Kochs became vassals of the Mughals. In 1662, the Mughal governor, Mir Jumala, conquered Kamarupa and the Ahom territory, at which time Ahom king agreed to pay tribute to the Mughals. Later, the Ahoms were successful in driving out the Mughal army, and by 1682, they extended their rule to the whole valley. In 1824, the Muns of Burma attacked Assam and established rule of terror which provided an opportunity for the British who had consolidated their position in Bengal. The East India Company drove the Burmese out, and after the conclusion of the 1826 treaty of Yandabo, they incorporated Assam into the British territories.
ADVENT OF ISLAM
There is no reliable historical record on the advent of Islam in the Brahmaputra valley. The Muslim historians who recorded accounts of Muslim conquests and preaching by Muslim saints in various parts of India did not pay much attention to Assam, particularly with regard to the advent of Islam. In the valley there is a considerable population of Muslims of Assamese origin, many of whom have family names of Ahoms and other non-Muslims. Hence, it is incorrect to maintain that all of the present Assamese-speaking Muslims are descendants of soldiers of the defeated Muslim armies who were unable to return, or chose to stay in Assam, as the Assamese and the British historians believe.
All of the present Assamese speaking Muslims cannot be regarded as the descendants of Muslim captives or early Muslim craftsmen; many of them must be descendants of converts to Islam from Ahom and other Assamese communities and tribes.
ASSAMESE MUSLIMS
The Muslims of Assamese origin, as distinguished from the immigrant Muslims, are the descendants of early Muslims who settled down in Assam before or during the Ahoms rule. There was Muslim presence even before Ahoms immigrated to Assam.
The immigrant Muslims are those Muslims and their descendants who migrated to Assam during the British occupation from 1905 to 1946.
The Muslims of Assam are divided into two distinct groups – Assamese Muslims and the immigrant (Bangla-speaking) Muslims. The immigrant Muslims constitute more than 80 per cent of the Muslim population and are mostly engaged in agriculture and allied professions. Muslims in Assam are a rural phenomenon. Though found in urban centres, they live mostly in rural areas. Villages having mixed Assamese and immigrant Muslim population are very few.
UNDER THE BRITISH OCCUPATION
In 1826, the Brahmaputra Valley passed into the hands of the (British) East India Company. In 1832, the district of Cachar was incorporated into Assam. In 1874, Assam was constituted into a chief commissioner’s province after incorporating the Bengal districts of Goalpara and Sylhet into Assam. In 1905, a new province of East Bengal and Assam was formed with Dacca as its capital, but there were protests against creation of the new province. The opposition was not because of Assam’s merger with East Bengal, but because of the partition of Bengal. The British government conceded the demand. After the annulment of the Bengal partition, Assam reverted to the status of a chief commissioner’s province in 1912, and in 1921 its status was raised as a governor’s province.
After the elections under the 1935 Act, the Congress-led ministries were installed in many provinces. In Assam, G.N. Bardoloi formed the Congress-led coalition ministry in September 1938. The World Wars , which were the most important world events of this period, influenced the political course of India and paved the way for her independence.
The British Viceroy in India, Lord Linlithgow, proclaimed that India was at war against Germany and called upon the Indian people to assist Britain in the war effort. The Viceroy’s action of dragging India into the war provided an opportunity for the people to demand its independence. The Congress, on October 10, 1939, demanded that India be declared an independent nation. The Muslims campaigned for independence with a separate federation of Muslim states consisting of the Northwest Frontier Province, the Punjab, Baluchistan, Kashmir, Hyderabad, Bengal, and Assam. Later on this became a demand from the creation of Pakistan by dividing British India into the two states of India and Pakistan. Lord Linlithgow clarified in a statement that dominion status under the British Commonwealth was an alternate aim. In August 1942, the Congress called for the immediate transfer of power to Indian hands, and then launched the Quit India Movement. The Muslim League called upon the British government to divide and quit.
THE CABINET MISSION
In May 1945, the war took a decisive turn, when Germany surrendered. The Japanese carried on a losing battle until August 1945. In September, Lord Wavell, the Viceroy announced the holding of elections of a constitution-making body for India as a preliminary step. The Congress and the League both accepted these elections. The Cabinet Mission of the British government arrived in India on March 23, 1946, to make arrangement for the framing of the constitution, the setting up of a constitution-making body, and to establish full self-government. The Cabinet mission, after numerous rounds of talks with the Congress, the League leaders, and the representatives of other interests, formulated a scheme known as the Cabinet Mission Plan. Both the Congress and the Muslim League, after much haggling and bargaining, accepted the plan.
THE INDEPENDENCE
In February 1947, the British Labour government appointed Earl Mountbatten as Viceroy. Soon after his arrival, Mountbatten was convinced that the unity of India as envisaged through the Cabinet Mission Plan was not workable, and thereby decided the partition of the country conceding the Muslim League demand for a sovereign Pakistan. The (Mountbatten) plan proposed the division of Punjab and Bengal, but, in the case of Assam, a referendum was to be held in Sylhet district to obtain the people’s verdict on whether it would remain in Assam or opt for the Eastern wing of proposed Pakistan.
The referendum in Sylhet went in favour of Pakistan. The rest of Assam became a part of Independent India on August 15, 1947.
ASSAM: THE LAND OF IMMIGRANTS
At no point of time in human history has Assam had a homogenous population. Its population has always been heterogeneous, a spectrum of different races, cultures, and linguistic groups. Throughout its history Assam has been a land of immigrants – both early and later settlers. Unlike the Indo-Gangetic plains of India to which migrants always came from the west, only in case of Assam they came from the east, west, north, and south. Assam has behind it a long, uninterrupted history of human migration spread over several centuries.
Many scholars believe it was the Ahoms after whom Assam derived its name. A Shan group of Tai people from the present Thailand came through Burma in the early 13th century (1228 C.E) and established their rule in Upper Assam, and later extended their rule to Lower Assam as well. During their rule, the Ahoms tried to guard their kingdom jealously against any other group trying to settle down in Upper Assam, but they permitted Muslims to settle down in Assam since their services were essential in the deciphering and interpreting of Persian documents, carving of inscriptions… minting of coins, embroidery works, painting with fast colours, carpentry, sword and gun making, and the manufacture of gun powder.
THE ASSEMESE
The present Ahoms, though found in all parts of Assam, but mostly concentrated in the regions of Lakhimpur, Dibrugarh and Sibsagar, are descendants of early Ahoms and Morans and Borohis, who were sub-tribes of Boro (also pronounced Bodo) tribes. The petty tribes were first subjugated by them and gradually absorbed into the Ahom community, a process that was accelerated by frequent intermarriages due to the paucity of Ahom women.
THE INDIGENOUS – WHO ?
The three major communities of Assamese people – the Ahoms, the Rajbangshis and the Asamiya caste Hindus (descendants of Brahmins of Khanauj and other holy places of UP, who came to Assam after Ahom Kings embraced Hinduism) – are descendants of migrants to Assam, and this migration did not take place in the ancient days of the pre-historic period. None of these communities can thus claim to be indigenous; they are, however, among the early immigrants to Assam.
ENTER MUSLIM PEASANTS
The growth and development of the province compared to the conditions present in the middle of the 18th century was tremendous, but there was no growth in agriculture, and gradually the food shortage became very acute. Land which could be utilised for agriculture was available to an unlimited extent.
The Assamese, tribals and non-tribals showed no interest in developing the agricultural potential of their land. The riverine areas of the Brahmaputra, called Char, which remain inundated by the swollen river in the rainy season and become swamp thereafter, were never exploited as the Assamese did not know how to develop these Char lands and sand banks and make them cultivatable. The peasants of the delta area of the Brahmaputra in East Bengal had been cultivating these swamps for generations to grow paddy and jute. The shortage of food and agricultural produce did attract many, particularly the tea garden labourers, to take to agriculture, and these labourers, after the expiration of their indenture period, instead of returning to their provinces, started settling down in Assam and engaging themselves in agricultural activities.
With the ex-labourers taking to agriculture, the government and the European capitalists tried to introduce improved variety and farming of rice, jute etc, and to induce the local population to engage itself in agriculture, but their attempts made little headway.
The peasants of East Bengal, who were mostly poor and landless Muslim agricultural labourers, now started migrating to Assam. These landless Muslim peasants, who were no more than serfs under Hindu landlords in overpopulated East Bengal, started immigrating to Assam from the turn of the century and reached their peak in the thirties.
These immigrants did not migrate under any conspiracy to invade Assam, or to make it a Bengali or a Muslim province. These poor farmers, abused in their home districts, left their hearths and homes to earn their bread with their hard toil and to escape exploitation and extortion.
(to be continued)