The Shillong Times

                                                                     Established 1945

The Trump Tremor: The President of  “Forgotten people”

PUBLIC | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2016

By Jyotirmoy Prodhani

            It was unexpected. At least going by the Twitter trolls, FB posts, TV channels, print media, opinion polls, long panel discussions, academic discourses and the hectic corporate activism in her favour, Hillary Clinton was on the verge making history to restore everything that the rational society believed as right. But on the result day there was hardly a moment that gave a pause to indicate any possibility for Hillary’s win, it was Trump all the way, fiercely unstoppable. A very significant section of the world lamented with horror, “The worst has happened”. What actually went wrong?

            Despite being one of America’s richest, he seemed to have lacked the finesse and polish one expects from a prospective POTUS, some kind of suavity and appeal that Pierce Brosnan and George Clooney exude. Obama had it. As for Hillary she reflected the subtle nuances of her class, a Yale returned former First Lady occupying a significant political post to have enough exposure to world politics, she truly belonged to her class. For many, being a woman added to her qualification, she gave America the great opportunity to choose their first woman president. She personified almost a heady mix of perfect and ideal discursive proprieties, a sophisticated blend of everything correct. Against such circumstances Trump’s win has turned out to be dumbfounding, generating astonishment and at the same time desperate anger. The supporters of Hillary, the Twitterati, social media enthusiasts and the powerful mainstream media including television and print, are up in arms against Trump with the intention to create a possible blockade on the road to the White House forcing Trump to be stranded on the road despite the absolute verdict in his pocket. Desperation is so acute, leading to a campaign to sabotage the process, quite in Indian style, by trying to convince the Republican Electorate College vote for Hillary instead of Trump on December 19 in blatant disregard to the faith with which the common people voted them to the Congress. Trump, actually, is seen to have risen from the ashes of an apocalypse. His victory is widely interpreted as the assertion of White supremacy as well as a vicious manifestation of anti immigration anxieties.

            Trump has legitimately won the election through a constitutionally valid electoral process of the land. But the amount of hatred and indignation inflicted on Trump after his victory, quite curiously, is symptomatic of what is generally attributed to Trump- deep seated hatred towards the ‘other’. Trump has quite clearly been rejected by the elites, the university and college educated sophisticated lot, the economically affluent well earning metropolitan section, by the powerful group that arguably control and regulate opinions and views, by the mainstream media barons, the corporate powerhouses that operate at the global scale and, of course, the majority of the non White and immigrant Americans. Then how come has he won?

            Instead of taking a grand stand to define what the US election this time meant, it can also be seen from simpler vantages. It was an election between the Democrats and the Republicans; between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. When Hillary got 232 of the electorates, Trump got a whopping 306. The Democrats were in power for the last sixteen years with Bill Clinton and Obama’s consecutive two terms each (with four years in between of Republican George W. Bush). The Democratic rule, however, has not been all about great glories, nor was the Republican interlude. But this time the election was largely determined by the poor, unemployed, less educated, vulnerable and insecure citizens though mostly comprising the Whites as against the White elites. It is evident that the rule of the Democrats and their jealous campaign for globalisation brought wider gaps to make clear division among people as beneficiaries and victims. It is the victims who had voted Trump to victory this election. 64 percent of the White Americans who form 45 % of the electorate do not have college level education. They are deluded with the great capitalist dream of globalisation. Most of them live in abject poverty and cannot afford even Obamacare health facilities nor can they meet the very basics of human needs when retrenchment has become for them a familiar fate.

            Ashutosh Varshney has revealed the curious pattern of votes cast in this election. 67 percent of non college educated voters voted for Trump and 28 percent for Hillary. This was expected. Which is perplexing is that when 49 percent of college educated voted for Trump, Hillary got only 45 percent of their votes. Besides, the minorities, the Hispanics, the Asians, the Blacks did not go for Hillary gung ho. In fact, she polled much less votes from these constituencies than what Obama had got. Trump even polled 8 percent Black votes and 29 percent Hispanics. Apparently Hillary was not an overwhelming favourite even for the traditional voters of the Democrats. More importantly, when Hillary has been projected as the natural choice of the feminists, the women vote she got was far from impressive. Though she has got more overall women votes, 54 percent women votes as against 43 percent for Trump, but among White women 53 percent voted for Trump when 43 percent voted for Hillary. Evidently Hillary Clinton was not the universal choice even among women.  After all, Hillary Clinton is not the epitome of all those ideals, a personification of those great values what Trump is not.    As a politician, holding powerful positions, she cannot boast of an impeccable career that was beyond any trace of visceral allegations. Her stint as the Secretary of State was mired with some of the nastiest of controversies.  Besides, after a long and largely disappointing Democratic rule in terms of economic and social security, the people of America deserved a change, more so, the people whom Trump addressed as the “forgotten men and women. The people who work hard but no longer have a voice.” Trump wanted to be their “voice”. America’s ‘voiceless’, America’s subaltern, as it were, deserved to elect a President of their own as they believed, writes Katty Kay of the BBC, “he gets me, he understands my struggle”.

            This election has opened up a new territory for the rest of the world- the odious underbelly of the opulent America, beyond California and New York, the two of the major states where Hillary swept the election. The world is hardly aware of the rural angst, the perennial existential anxieties of the working class in the urban conurbations of America, who were the ones seemed to have made a point. This is the group of people nobody bothered to take into account while framing their strategies to ensure Hillary’s win.  This election has also made this imperative to reconfigure the perspectives and discourses on the issues of globalisation, demographic anxiety, sense of economic and social insecurity, question of mass influx, lack of employment even in the first world and so on. Instead of enforcing ruptures and be constantly accusative of the host entities, there is a need to address the issue with mutually appreciative and respectful idioms in order to create a congenial climate of mutual trust and confidence. So far the liberal discourses on the issues have been mono-directional, resulting in the extreme consequences like Trump victory.

            Despite the despicable record of his utterly politically incorrect campaign trail, Trump’s victory speech on November 9 was laudably inclusive for he proclaimed to be the President for “everyone” and pledged to work for America by reaching out to all, even to his opponents.   However, his prospective presidency is not devoid of any uncanny premonitions either. It was George W. Bush, a Republican, who had changed the world forever through his contemptible craze for devastation; similar predilection in Trump, if cultivated, might well spell another regime of irrevocable doom. Trump now has to prove what he meant in his victory speech, after all the cards are now in his hands to lay it right.

(Jyotirmoy Prodhani is a Professor in the Dept. of English at NEHU, Shillong and can be reached  at rajaprpodhani@gmail.com

(NB: As for popular vote Trump got 62,972, 226 when Hillary got 62,277,750)

Read more at http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2016/11/17/the-trump-tremor-the-president-of-the-forgotten-people/#yRpyGHwlxshTY32a.99

The Shillong Times

                                                                     Established 1945

Theatre of the Earth

SUNDAY JULY 27 2014

Jyotirmoy Prodhani on theatre patriarch H Kanhailal who was in Shillong to showcase his creativity

CELEBRATED THEATRE director Ratan Thiyam is known for creating ‘Theatre of Roots’, a term popularised by two contemporary theatre critics Suresh Awasthi and Richard Schechner. But Heisnam Kanhailal, the patriarch of modern Indian theatre from Manipur, calls his movement the ‘Theatre of the Earth’.

            He elaborated: “My theatre is that of the earth. It is essentially rooted in the earth and does not necessarily descend from heaven; it is informed by the accumulated wisdom that gathered from the earth, from here and now, our surroundings, our milieu. It intimately emanates from its own ecology, its own native landscape.”

Kanhailal added, “After all, not only art, even science has emerged from the earth. If one looks at life away from this reality, one is unceremoniously dislocated from his native ground. Even the social experiences of the individual and the community are actually solidified through its intimate linkages with the earth.”

            This understanding of theatre apparently inspired him to put up two of his earlier radical productions which redefined and destabilised the conventional notions of theatre space and theatre actors. Nupi Lan (War of Women of 1939) was first performed in 1989 marked a new beginning of Kanhailal’s repertoire. The play was performed in Ima Keithel (Mother’s Market), the famous all-women market of Imphal, and was performed by the women of the market themselves.

            About 10 years ago, he made a similar experiment with his 1979 play, Sanjennaha (cowherd), which he staged at the remote village of Umathel where the local Paite tribal villagers were the performers. He thus brought theatre to a reversed trajectory. Instead of people coming to theatre, theatre went to them to be a part of their own experience.

Kanhailal’s creative differences with Thiyam as a theatre director are pronounced and he is candid about his disagreement with his legendary compatriot. On Thiyam his observations are non-ambiguous. “Thiyam’s plays are fantastic, they make majestic theatrical presence and are superbly spectacular. It is a mindboggling visual treat. But for me theatre is not only about copious extravaganza, it is essentially about the intimate nuances, the raw earthy immediacy of experiences. This is what Theatre of Roots is all about,” he said.

            He had adapted one of his most powerful plays, Dopdi (2000) from Mahasweata Devi’s eponymous short story ‘Draupadi’. The story immediately drew his attention for it dealt with the theme of universal experience of human suffering and oppression. It is of an adivasi woman of Bengal, whose husband was killed in a fake encounter, and was raped by an army captain. H Savitiri, Kanhailal’s actor wife and who is a Padma Shree recipient like him, played the lead.

            But quite significantly the play turned out to be a premonition of a real life event in the history of Manipur. In Dopdi, the protagonist, takes off her clothes one by one and dares the army officer to rape her turning the defenceless naked body of her womanhood into the most powerful weapon of resistance and challenge. The play was a huge draw in the major Indian cities, but back home in Manipur it courted massive controversy. A section of women organisations of Imphal demanded the play be pulled out when the NGOs, mostly of the youths, wanted the play to continue. The play turned quite prophetic when a group of women came out on to the street, in front of the Kangla Fort, stripped naked, proclaiming “Indian Army rape us” to protest the killing and alleged rape of Thangjam Manorama by the 17 Sector Assam Rifles on 11 July 2004. Kanhailal received phone calls. The callers addressed him as Ching’ü, the foreseer.

            For Kanhailal theatre is essentially grounded with ideology and a deep-rooted social commitment. Theatre is not a detached art, it must become a voice for the voiceless, a means that gives the power to the disempowered to resist. From the vantage of such vision Kanhailal said: “Theatre must speak for the weak, the vulnerable and the voiceless. Or else what should theatre strive for? I am always obsessed with Jesus; he has been a constant inspiration for me. He has sacrificed himself for the weaker section of the people. Similarly, theatre too should act heroically like Spartacus who turned ordinary slaves into formidable soldiers to fight valiantly against the oppressive rule of the Roman oligarchy.”

            Pebet (1975) and Memoirs of Africa (1985) are two of his most celebrated productions which were recently performed during the Theatre Appreciation Course programme at NEHU, Shillong, with one of the first NSD graduates from Shillong, Lapdiang Artimai Syiem, as the force behind organising the event. Pebet is one of the earliest productions of Kanhailal that drew worldwide attention for the unique dramatic narrative that he invented as an alternative theatre idiom.

            Many critics including Rustom Bharucha categorised Kanhailal’s theatre as ‘Poor Theatre’ where the usual theatrical extravaganza is conspicuously missing. But despite such stark lack of opulence and their apparent destitution the impact is unmistakable, it is tangibly piercing and overwhelmingly potent. In both these performances it is the body of the actor that becomes the central source of power, the ultimate store house of theatrical energy. It is the superb manipulation and control of the body through which the story emanates with the force and impact of corporeal poetry.

            Kanhailal picked up the story of Pebet from a Manipuri folk tale which he improvised to tell a story of contemporary relevance. Pebet is a rare bird of Manipur, smaller than sparrow and the story is all about the mother pebet (performed with poetic grace by Sabitri) and her struggle to protect her broods from the vicious claws of a prying cat (brilliantly performed by Tombi). After several attempts the crafty cat manages to get hold of the youngest and weakest chick, indoctrinates it and reduces it into his veritable slave. The worried mother frenetically searches for her lost brood and slumps into a state of stupor visited by a nightmare where all her broods are lured by the proselytised chick into the trap of the mischievous cat. They are subjected to so much of atrocious subjugation that they even happily lick the arse of the cat, literally. But one of them protests and peels off parts of the buttock of the cat with the scrunching of his resolute teeth. The aberrant brood is then subjected to brutal torture by his own siblings at the instance of the cat. The cat even successfully entangles them in fratricidal violence against each other, who even go to the extent of attacking their own mother ironically chanting the Sanskrit phrase, janani janma bhumishya sargadapi garioyoshi (mother and the motherland are greater than even paradise). However, the proselytised broods recover from the state of their forced subservience and successfully come out of the diabolic clutch of the cat. Significantly, the whole drama has been a nightmare of the mother after the abduction of her youngest chic.

            The first thing that captivates the audience is the rhythm and poise of the performance that encapsulates every dramatic moment of the play, and more importantly, though the audience are not aware of the actual story that is to unfold yet, they soon realise that they are actually watching birds on stage though none of the actors would wear any improvised costume. In fact, there is no costume, no setting, no music, and no dialogue; there are only movements and the gradual unfolding of the story through their lyrical acts. The first major dramatic moment of pure brilliance occurs when the eggs of the mother pebet bursts open and the chicks come out of the shells.

            The entire episode is enacted not with any high-tech props or any special effect but with mere movements of their bare bodies and rhythmic verbal noise, “tet, tet, tet, tet…” In fact, “tet, tet, tet…” and “pebet, te tu” have been the recurring sounds in the play that form the central ‘dialogue’ to communicate the story to the audience, and for the audience they have no difficulty at all in understanding their moments of joy, fear, pain and anger presented through the periodic modulation of that basic noise, “tet, tet…” This is its biggest theatrical triumph.

            In the context of the battered political reality of the Northeast in general and of Manipur in particular the play becomes not only as one of the most significant and powerful critiques but also an extended metaphor of the internecine political violence and bankrupt ideology that have taken the entire region to ransom. One who is an insider and has suffered the morbid brutalities of militancy and its diabolic consequences in personal and community life can immediately identify with the characters and comprehend each move which has shown in the play as the trajectory leading to a horrendous degeneration of the very fundamentals of human values, the collapse of logic and the tragic crumbling of the age old ethos that used to ensure the sense of belongingness of the communities living in here as its native denizens.

            Memoirs of Africa is an outstanding achievement of H Sabitiri. Based on a poignant poem by L. Samarendra Singh, “Africagee Wakhanda Gee”, the play is a physical poetry in motion. The solo performance captures the most devastating experiences of human history across civilizations where the epochal turmoil of Africa transforms into a profound metaphoric trope to narrate the tale of universal human encounter with suffering and devastating repression. This has been one of the most accomplished performances of Sabitri where, through entirely non-verbal renditions, she has so vividly and energetically narrates man’s most shattering encounter with the tumultuous epochs of brutalities, overwhelming atrocities, betrayal and unspeakable carnage that scorched the pastoral innocence of life into searing landscape of parched nostalgia. The play is without dialogue, apart from occasional verbal noise with varied intonation there is hardly any other physical sound used in the play, not even music but the impact is overpoweringly tangible and intensely moving.

            As part of his mission to reach out to the communities in peripheries, Kanhailal has expanded his theatrical reach beyond the boundaries of Manipur. Assam and Tripura are two of his new theatre destinations. In Assam he has set up community theatre in the Rabha villages of Goalpara with talented NSD alumni Pabitra Rabha.

http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2014/07/27/theatre-of-the-earth/

http://www.nezine.com/

“I call my theatre as the Theatre of the Earth”- 

Heisnam Kanhailal

Jyotirmoy Prodhani

Date of Publish: 2015-11-15

INTERVIEW

“I call my theatre as the Theatre of the Earth”- Heisnam Kanhailal

An interview with the noted theatre personality of modern Indian theatre from Manipur, a recipient of Padma Shri award, Heisnam Kanhailal by Jyotirmoy Prodhani. This interview was taken when Kanhailal visited  North Eastern Hill  University in Shillong as the key resource person for a theatre appreciation course organised by National School of Drama in 2014.  There he had staged his plays and demonstrated his theatre methodology. In an intimate conversation he reflects on his own genre of theatre tradition that he has evolved.

JP: You have evolved a new theatrical idiom and have also incorporated various native elements from Manipur to give a specific identity to your theatre. How would you like to define your theatre?

H. Kanhailal:  “Theatre of the Earth. This is how I would like to call my theatre. My theatre is the theatre of the earth, it is essentially rooted in the earth and do not necessarily descend from heaven, it is informed by the accumulated wisdom that gathered from the earth, from here and now, our surroundings, our milieu. It intimately emanates from its own ecology, its own native landscape. After all, not only art, even science has emerged from the earth. If one looks at life away from this reality, one is unceremoniously dislocated from one's native ground. Even the social experiences of the individual and the community are actually solidified through its intimate linkages with the earth”

JP: How different is your theatre from that of Ratan Thiyam who is also known as one of the exponents of what is called “Theatre of Roots”?

H. Kanhailal: “Ratan Thiyam’s plays are fantastic; they make majestic theatrical presence and are superbly spectacular. It is a mindboggling visual treat. But for me theatre is not only about copious extravaganza, it is essentially about the intimate nuances, the raw earthy immediacy of experiences. This is what “Theatre of Earth” is all about. I strongly believe that theatre is essentially grounded with ideology and a deep rooted social commitment.”

JP: What is the inherent ideology of your theatre, ‘Theatre of Earth’ that is?

H. Kanhailal: “Theatre is not a detached art, it is strongly linked with its ideological commitments for it must become a voice for the voiceless, a means that gives the power and strength to the disempowered to resist and take on the challenges. Theatre must speak for the weak, the vulnerable, the voiceless. Or else what should theatre strive for? I always think of Jesus; he has been a constant inspiration for me. He has sacrificed himself for the weaker section of the people. Similarly, theatre too should act heroically like Spartacus who turned ordinary slaves into formidable soldiers to fight valiantly against the oppressive rule of the Roman oligarchy.”

JP: How do you think your theatre could achieve that goal?

H. Kanhailal: This has been my mission to bring theatre closer to the people not only as audience but as participants. One of my early experiments was Nupi Lan, (women’s war of 1939) which we produced in 1989. This was one of the first plays in Manipur where the women of Imphal’s famous all women market, Ima Keithel (mother’s market), were my actors who had  performed the play in the market shed itself. We had produced another play in 1979,   Sanjennaha (cowherd) which was performed in a remote village of Umathel where the local Paite tribal villagers were the performers. 

JP: What are the issues that you often try to address through your theatre?

H. Kanhailal: Theatre must be able to question the conventional representations and its politics. For example, even the great epic like the Mahabharata is not free from this vice. I was moved by the complexities of the character of Karna in theMahabharata. I was inspired by Karna to carry out a theatrical experiment. I wrote a play on him, Karna, which we produced in 1997. For me this is one of my most significant productions where I tried to raise the question of social segregation and politics of caste and marginalisation. The last scene of the play is very significant when Karna dies. Though his actual mother Kunti had abandoned him as an infant in order to avoid embarrassment but as he died she comes to claim the body of her son for cremation as an Aryaputra. It is an irony that when he was alive she never came to claim her motherhood upon him but when he dies she wants to preserve his caste sanctity.  There also arrives Radha, Karna’s shudra step mother. Interestingly, since she was a shudra, she was barred from shedding tears at the death her son. However, she also laid claim on the body of Karna for cremation. Now who actually had the real claim over the body of Karna? There I tried to answer the question through the spirit of Karna. The spirit of Karna said, ‘I am none of your son, I am the son of the author of this great epic, Vyasa. It is he who made me, it is he who orphaned me. I am his prodigy, only he has the claim over me, only he can bring finality to my present status of ambivalence.’ You see this question still persists as to who determines the mode of our representations in society, who has the rightful claims over the rights we often fight for. Through my theatre I try to address these issues though I do not claim that I have got those answers yet.”

JP: Your Dopdi is also quite significant.

H. Kanhailal: “It is one of the most controversial also. I had picked up the story from Mahasweta Devi’s short story. The story had a huge impact on me for I found the story to have strong relevance to our own context. This is a powerful story of universal experience of human suffering and oppression. This is the story of an adivasi woman of Bengal, whose husband was killed in a fake encounter, and was raped by a Senanayak, a captain of the Indian Army. Sabitri (Sabitiri Heisnam, Kanhailal’s actor wife) played the lead role in the play. In the play she peels her cloth off one by one and dares the Senanayak to rape her. The defenseless naked body of a woman turned out to be the most powerful weapon to mutilate the masochism of state brutality. In the play Sabitri actually removed all her cloth, stood all naked in front of the army Captain with the back of her body facing the audience. It was completely a new theatrical experience for the audience. The play was hugely appreciated in the metropolises like Delhi and Calcutta. The scene made the most powerful theatrical statement with that audacious act. The critics came and met me to shower their praises. But the same play when performed in Manipur drew strong reactions. It became a big controversy. I was threatened and was asked to pull out the play. But interestingly many NGOs of young people supported my play and wanted me to continue with the play. But quite significantly, the play turned out to be a prophetic premonition. The play opened in 2000, but when in 2004 (11 July, 2004) the Kangla incident happened with the Manipuri women stripped completely to protest against the killing and rape of Thongjam Manorama by the Assam Rifles personnel, with that famous banner, “Indian Army, Rape Us”, they found a strange resonance of the play I had produced some four years before. I received phone calls where the callers used to address me as “Ching’ü”, the foreseer or a prophet.

JP: You have an elaborate module of theatre training in your Kalakshetra Manipur, the most famous abode of learning theatre. What are the principles that are cultivated?

H. Kanhailal: “Theatre is not only about enacting roles on stage for the shows alone. It is an art of complete commitment. Acting is not as simple as it seems when one sees it on stage. Acting is a discipline of extreme rigour. You must have complete control over your whole body, mind and spirit. Here everyone goes through a rigorous training regime which includes voice coaching, physical training, martial art, meditation, training on music and dance and so on. We have picked up elements from various sources, for there are so many things we have to learn from. Our actors learn meditation from the Buddhist schools of meditation, they learn about physical movements and voice control and modulation from the movements and voices of animals, birds and even from the trees. It is a comprehensive training module, after all to become an actor one needs to be alert and be one with

Khan Choudhury Amanatulla Ahmed: Rediscovering the First Modern Historian of Kamatapur

Jyotirmoy Prodhani

Khan Choudhury Amanatulla Ahmed (1873-1957) is one of the major native historians during the colonial periods to have taken the task of writing the history of a very significant kingdom and its people – Koch Behar and the Koches. In fact, writing history was an intellectual resistance to the constant feeding of the colonisers about real and imagined stories that further demonised, denigrated and disfigured the natives. The substantial amount of texts produced by the colonial authors from the late 18^th century onward is symptomatic of a typical colonial design to map, interpelate and construct the natives. In the context of North East India there has been a significant proliferation of works pertaining to the documentation of the indigenous ethnic communities of the land. This includes the authors like B.H. Hodgson (Koch, Bodo and Dhimal Tribes, 1847), Alexander Mackenzie (The North East Frontier 1884), T.C. Hodson (The Meithis, in 1908), Sidney Endle (The Kacharis, 1911), William Carey (The Garo Jungle Book, 1919), J.P. Mills (The Rengma Nagas, 1937) and many more. Quite significantly most of these writers were not trained historians or professional academics; rather they were mostly mid level administrators or associated with their respective missionary dispensations with perhaps the exception of T.C. Hodson who was an acclaimed academician. The attempts have been largely anthropological, social and also historical, but almost none of them were known scholars of such disciplines, not even trained in the field. The colonial texts on the natives were not naive academic exercises either. This was part of specific colonial agenda – to govern, ‘civilize’ and, of course, to subjugate.

                The history written about the indigenous tribes by the colonisers reflect a typical pattern – that of distinguishing them from all possible traces of their pan Indian linkages. More tellingly almost all such accounts invariably express an anxiety when the respective communities seem to have intimate cultural and spiritual ties with that of Hinduism. The colonial historians have even invented a phrase, “Hindu converts or “Hinduisation”. Both these terms are the derivatives from the exercise of the Christian Missionaries that had conversion of the natives to Christianity en masse as one of its fundamental preoccupations. Therefore even apparently erudite and specialised works like Hodgson’s Koch Bodo and Dhimal Tribes mentions the native spiritual traits of the Koches as an effect of their conversion to Hinduism from the reign of Vishwa Singha. In fact, the use of the very term ‘conversion’ in the context of the North East tribes is a clear indication of the horrible lack of the proper understanding of the evolution of the Hindu spiritual order as a non invasive and accommodative discourse that has the inbuilt capacity to assign legitimacy to the diverse religious enunciations of indigenous cultures unlike the organised religions like Christianity and Islam which are primarily predicated upon the denial and discrediting of the indigenous faiths of the natives.

Conversion essentially entails abandonment or even metaphorical murdering of one’s native deity. Hence, when one is converted to Christianity or Islam or other such organised religion one must enact this act of either abandoning or even murdering one’s ancient God as the necessary precondition. Hinduism has sustained and expanded itself with the native rites rather than replacing it with in its own absolute terms. This incapacity of Christianity has made it an urgent task to denigrate the native faiths and their practices of regular spiritual rites, now entrenched into the Hindu fold, as something evil, self defacing and disparaging. This has been one of the absurd fundamentals of the colonial historiography.

                Amanatulla Ahmed was one of the very few native historians of the first quarter of the twentieth century colonial India. The task of writing history for a native historian under colonial regime was not easy.  But being a part of the ancient Kamrupa, Amanatulla has been a part of the great Kamrupi legacy of historiography. Among the native rulers of the medieval India the Koches and the Ahoms were the only dynasties that had promoted the writing of history under the full royal patronage. The Vanshavalis of the Koches and the Buranjis of the Ahoms are two of the most significant native historiographic traditions of medieval India. The great Koch regime in Kamatapur is known for the keeping of the royal record in the form of Vanshavalis. The Darang Rajvanshavali being one of the most significant historical documents of the Koches. With the advent of colonialism as the native kings became mostly subservient to the colonial rulers, the history of the land did not remain as glorifying to encourage the recording of that history under royal patronage. This led to the steady decline of indigenous history by native historians; besides the mode of writing history considerably changed under the colonial tutelage. Therefore this enterprise was taken over by the colonial writers instead, often with the objective to subvert the past and the present realities of the natives from within.  `

                This is significant that the reigning King of Koch Behar commissioned one of the most learned men of his land to write the history of his kingdom, and arguably Amanatullah Ahmed had emerged through his Cooch Beharer Itihas (1936) as the first native historian of Kamatapur to have mastered the art of modern historiography of the West to write the history of an indigenous kingdom. While writing the history of Koch Behar he had carried out an extensive research and drew up a broad canvas to construct a comprehensive narrative of the Kamatapur history beginning from the time of Kamrupa to Kamatapur to the present Koch Behar of his time. He had extensively travelled, collected materials, consulted documents, visited sites, explored the libraries, met the members of Koch royal families including the royal households in Bijni, Darang as well as Panga in Rongpur and so on. He had also covered a vast geographical territory that included the whole of North East including Koch Behar, Rongpur, Bihar, Bhutan, Nepal and also the major metropolises of the time like Calcutta and Delhi in order to obtain materials. In the ‘30s Rs. 3500/-was a substantial sum which the King of Koch Behar, Maharaja Raj Rajendra Narayan Bhup Bahadur, offered for the publication of the book. Though Amanatulla Ahmed was not a career historian but was a passionate social and cultural activist. His keen involvement with culture, language, people, society and history enriched his vision and immensely expanded his discursive range. This is one of the reasons that his magnum opus, Cooch Beharer Itihas is not only a political history of the land but also a social history of the people.

                For a historian of his generation in India, he had his predicaments – the limitations and restrictions. For good deal of basic sources he had to rely on the colonial accounts which were only relatively easily available resources which essentially narrated the colonial version of the native history. The task at hand for him was to decolonise history. This was a crucial challenge. Amanatulla’s history of Koch Behar was also an attempt to transcend the geography that was demarcated through political contingencies of the time. In fact, after a period of amnesiac spell, he had resurrected the memory of Kamrup Kamata in the consciousness of the masses through this book. When the colonial historiography affected a perceptive distance of the North East natives from the rest of India, Amanatulla reinvented the history of this place and people against a pan Indian ethos. The exoticisation of the North East has been a systematic enterprise effectively undertaken by the colonial observers who had projected the land as semi civilised, remote, hazardous, and primitive where any sign of civility was at best the result of discrediting aberrant apostasy.

                Amanatulla has not only been a historian but was also an intellectual activist of the time. His cerebral conviction, intellectual honesty, extraordinary urge for deeper historical queries made him one of the most active intellectuals to set up some of the most significant institutions and organisations in Assam and Koch Behar. Uttar Banga Sahitya Sanmelan and Coochbehar Hitasadhini Sabha were two of the major institutions of which he had been one of the founders. He was also one of the key architects of the Kamrup Anusandhan Samiti, which turned to be the most notable organisations to have begun the exploration of the linguistic, cultural and the historical past of the ancient territory of Pragjyotishpura – Kamrupa.

                Khan Choudhury, the royal title given him by Maharaja Raj Rajendra Bhup Bahadur, a polyglot with equal competence in many languages including Bengali, Assamese, Sanskrit, Parsi, Urdu, English etc. was a man of secular intellectual credibility. He was particularly interested in the history and archaeology of Kamrup- Kamata. He had also presented erudite papers in several scholarly gatherings in various parts of undivided India. Khan Choudhury Amanatulla Ahmed has become more relevant in the current context of contested historical claims made from numerous quarters for political gains.

                Kochbehaer Itihas  is a very important document as a comprehensive answer to the dubious and absurd claims, especially by an ill informed section of the Bodos, that the Koch kingdom was actually founded and ruled by some Bodo ancestors and not by the historically established Koches. They even went to the extent of inventing some fancy names distorting the actual names of the historical figures. It should be noted that the very term Bodo is a suspicious terminology for it was primarily an invention by a few colonial writers who had written on the past of the people of Assam mostly on the basis conjectures and plausible imaginations inventing curious stories. One such colonial author, B.H. Hodgson, invented the term ‘Bodo’ as a philological nomenclature to denote a group of Tibeto Burman languages in 1847. That is, the term is essentially a late 19^th century colonial invention. Later the term was used by the colonial rulers even to refer to the great Kacharis. But subsequently only a particular group retained the term as their community name which evidently suggests that prior to the colonial naming the group might not even have a proper name for themselves. The term Mech is a generic term with ample evidence in ancient texts, including the Sanskritic and Brahminical ones, that the ethnic communities that did not follow ritualistic Hinduism were considered as the Mech. The modern equivalent of the term is definitely ‘Tribal’ that included many ethnic categories like the Garos, the Rabhas, the Koches, the Dhimals and so on. Later the colonial historians liberally used the term interchangeably to refer to the communities randomly, betraying the veritable confusion of the colonial writers.

                It may be noted that Hodgson’s book Koch, Bodo, Dhimal Tribes (1847), despite limitations of antiquarian propositions, many of which were mostly based on assumptive surmises, made some very perceptive and authentic empirical observations. Through his intensive field studies he had discovered that as late as in the mid nineteenth century the Bodos were primarily nomadic with almost no connection with one spot. He even quite rightly points out that being nomadic, in their language there was no term for ‘village” let alone a kingdom. He writes, “The condition or status of the Bodos and Dhimal people is that of erratic cultivators of the wild....though cultivators, all and exclusively, they are nomadic cultivators, so little connected with any one spot that neither the Bodo nor the Dhimal language possesses a name for village!” (1847, 154).

From this highly informed observation it can be clearly concluded that till the mid nineteenth century the Bodos were essentially nomadic without any idea of settled village.  Hence it becomes quite amusing when they claim a historically established Kingdom of the Koches as their own when they were still nomadic, practising primitive method of agriculture from one place to another without the social capability for settled habitation. More importantly one can always find reason to interrogate the antiquarian claim of the community named as Bodos by the British colonisers for no such word ever existed in the great body of literatures of Pragjyotishpura, Kamrupa and Kamatapur that had proliferated till the early 19^th century. It is significant that Hodgson in the same book mentions that most of Koch Rajahs, following the maxims of Vishwa Singha, drove the Bodos into the forests from their kingdoms. (1847, 153) This indicates quite sadly that the community which was termed as the Bodos by the colonisers were actually a subjugated minor subjects of the Koch rulers across Assam and Koch Behar.    

                Khan Choudhury Amanatullah Ahmed’s historical work on Koch Behar is not only a priceless document pertaining to Koch Behar alone, rather it remains an abiding source of history for the Koch Rajbanshi people of Assam and Koch Behar, vis a vis the erstwhile Kamatapur.  

References

Ahmed, Khan Choudhry Amanatulla. Coochbeharer Itihas. Coochbehar: Coohbehar State Press,     1936.

Hodgson, B.H. Essay the First on the Koch, Bodo and Dhima Tribes in Three Parts. Calcutta:  Tomas         Baptist Mission Press, 1847.

Koch, Sibendra Narayan. Koch Janagosthir Atit Sandhanat Eti Khoj. Tura: Meghalaya Koch Sanmilan,      2012.  

The Shillong Times

BJP Should not Misread the Assam Victory

PUBLIC | FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Shar

By Jyotirmoy Prodhani

In the wake of the unprecedented victory of the BJP and its allies, being overexcited, if it allows the elements like Yogi Adityanath or Girirarj Singh types to open their shops in Assam, it will be a costly mistake on its part. One must be clear about the fact that in Assam the voters are least bothered about the Hinduvta variety of politics that many in the BJP consider as the only source of their oxygen. Though cow is intrinsic to the cultural rite and roots of Assam, nobody voted to save the ‘gomata’, nor are they sentimental about the ‘mahan Bhartiya Parampara’ or the ‘shuddh Hindi Bhasha.’ On the contrary, quite paradoxically, it is a vote against all this, and more importantly, against communalism. Despite the constant efforts by a section of the intelligentsia in Assam to project the BJP and its allies in Assam as the vicious network of rabid communalism, clearly enough, the people at large were not convinced.

BJP and its allies, which included, apart from the AGP, the political outfits of the Bodos, the Tiwas and the Rabhas, have won because people wanted an end to an arrogant regime. Despite the obvious anomalies, the Congress government was in denial mode. After Himanta Biswa Sarma left Health and Education portfolios, the two departments quickly went to the docks. Gauhati Medical College Hospital that was competing with the high end private hospitals soon came back to square one as well as all other government hospitals in the state. NRHM in Assam, which had one of the most efficient managements in the country, virtually disappeared post Himanta Biswa Sarma. The rural health scenario was the worst affected.

In the education sector the new minister, Mr Sarat Borkotoky, showed his legendary inefficiency by stopping the TET examinations and clean appointments, rather he was more interested to retrieve some ancient government orders to gag the entire teaching community of the state. As for holding high school final examinations during his regime, which is one of the most important responsibilities under his ministry, answer scripts in thousands were either eaten away by cattle or gutted in fire. And corruption in recruitment made a resounding comeback!

Under Rockybul Hussain as the Forest Minister the killing of rhinos and the plundering of the forest resources were at their peak. Massive deforestation and encroachment of the reserved forests became routine. Not a word of regret was ever uttered by the government, instead Tarun Gogoi had tacitly encouraged poaching when he had made that infamous anthropocene remark accusing people of showing undue concern at the death of wild beasts and not showing similar emotion for humans (meaning the illegal settlers in the notified forest lands).

People had voted against such horrific indifferences to the seeping inefficiency, rampant corruption and mindless destruction of Assam’s ecology. It would again be a gross misreading to assume that only ‘Hindus’ had voted for the BJP and the Muslims had distributed their votes between the Congress and the AIUDF. BJP got the votes as a result of a resurgent ethnic collaboration, which included, inter alia, various ethnic communities of the state including the Ahoms, the Koch Rajbanshis, the Gorkhalis, the Adivsis, the Kalitas, the Assamese Sikh community, the Christians, the Bengalis, the Buddhists and other linguistic minorities, and of course the numerous tribal communities and so on and so forth and also, it must be noted, a large section of the Muslim community. The indigenous Muslims like the Gariya Marias and the Desi Muslims, like any other average Assamese individual, are hardly preoccupied with their religious identity. In fact, they see BJP in Assam as a mere political party like any other party, hence they are least bothered about it as a threat, as some observers would like to believe it, for these people are very much rooted and integral to the larger Assamese ethos of the state.

BJP will commit a grave error if they harp on the illegal immigration from Bangladesh in an accent suitable for election hooting and not at all desirable from the ones that have gained the mandate to govern, though they must take rational steps to solve the issue. A section of the Assam intelligentsia would quite uncritically lament it in their pet term as the rise of the ‘the communal forces’ or the ‘arrival of the fascists’ etc. but such interpretations, apart from having some legitimacy in the left literatures, would not necessarily be reflective of the ground realities. The people that have voted this alliance to power, by any stretch of left rhetoric, are not the epitome of communal politics in the state. Instead it is the other way round. That it was against communal politics has been well reflected by the fact that in many constituencies, where the Muslims are a majority, the BJP and its allies have won from the constituencies like Bilasipara East in lower Assam etc.

What has turned out to be the most significant in this election is that it is the Muslim voters who have rejected, in a decisive manner, the diabolic communal politics so viciously promoted by the Attar merchant Maulana Badruddin Ajmal of AIUDF. The people of South Salmara in Manikachar, a border district of Assam with absolute Muslim majority, have shown their extraordinary tenacity and determination to frustrate the design of the merchant of communal politics in Assam by rejecting him outright through a massive mandate. They have chosen a native Congress leader, Wajed Ali Choudhury, and discarded the one who had migrated to the constituency thinking that his vitriolic communal rhetoric and promotion of medieval superstitions and subjugations would be enough to wrest the Muslim majority seat in the border district. This ignominious defeat of Maulana Badhruddin should be the biggest lesson for the BJP that the people Assam, irrespective of their religion, caste and creed, are potentially capable of destroying the very foundation of the designs that is primarily predicated upon the ugly fangs of communal politics.

Nevertheless, one cannot miss the fact that for the first time in the history of Assam a leader belonging to a marginal tribal community, the Sonowal Kacharis, would lead the government. He would be the first tribal Chief Minister of Assam. For this reason alone, BJP deserved to win this election. The writer is Professor, Dept of English, NEHU, Shillong.

Read more at http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2016/05/20/bjp-should-not-misread-the-assam-victory/#MFXjSeUeLEP6axMB.99

The Shillong Times

Goalpara has its own identity: History never lies

UNI | MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2014

By Jyotirmoy Prodhani

I appreciate the two responses to my rejoinder on Goalpara and respect the views of the writers. However, I have decided to clarify certain issues as a moral imperative else numerous misgivings pertaining to Goalpara might unduly persist. Goalpara came under the Bengal Nawab when Koch King Laxminarayan of Coochbehar took the help of Nawab Alauddin Khan in 1612, to defeat his cousin Parikshitnarayan who ruled the eastern part of Kamata kingdom that comprised Goalpara. Though control of the Nawabs on Goalpara was never smooth. (Sir Edward Gait, A History of Assam, 1905/ 2000 pages. 63-70, and also Dharma Narayan Burma and Dhaneswar Manta, Kamrup, Kamata, Coochbehar Rajyer Itihaas, 2005, p. 146). On 12 August, 1765 Goalpra became part of the British territory and was attached to Rongpur district between 1765 and 1812. These two territories shared the same language, history and culture and were earlier together known as Rongamati (see S. Barman, Goalparar Jana Itihax, 2009, p 5) In 1815 Goalpara along with Garo Hills became a separate district; from 1826 to 1866 it was with Assam; in 1867 it was attached to Coochbehar and in 1874 back to Assam. In 1905, Goalpara was attached to what was termed as East Bengal and in 1912 Goalpara was finally attached to Assam. That is, Goalpara remained in East Bengal practically for seven years. (see Physical and Political Geography of Assam, Shillong, 1896; A Collection of Treatise, Engagements and Sanads, WW Hunter et al. Calcutta, 1931). During these periods the local rulers were the indigenous gentry including the king of Bijni. (see Amalendu Guha, Zamidarkalin Goalpara Jilar Artho Xamajik Avastha, 1984/2000). In 1989 Goalpara was split into four separate districts. But it is the information about Goalpara in medias res, in the middle, with which at best a short story can be written without a beginning or an end, but surely, not the history of a place.

The Ancient period: Goalpara’s association with Kamrup Kamata is more than 2000 years old. The territorial expanse of the ancient kingdom of Pragjyshpura or Kamrupa stretched up to the Bay of Bengal to its south (i.e, the whole of what is called East Bengal), to its west it was up to the river Karatoya (the present area of Malda in the so called North Bengal), Bhutan to its north and upto Dikhou river in the east. (Gait, pages 10-11, 15) Gait has suggested that either in Goaplara or in Coochbehar was the capital of Kumar Bhaskarvarman when he, along with Harshavardhan, vanquished the king of Gaud, Sashanka, whom P.W. Ingty described as the “chieftain of a small fortified town known as Rohtrasgarh…in Bengal also known as Gauda” (Bhaskara: The Last of the Varmans, 2013, page 57). Significantly, C.D. Tripathy mentioned that the Bengali year, Bongabdo, is based on Bhaskar Barman’s ascension to the throne in the year 593 AD (Aspects of the Medieval History of Assam, 2002, page, 14)

In fact, Edward Gait has concluded that the city of Gaur of Lakhnuati was founded by Sankaladip who was a Koch or a Garo from Kamrupa and suggested that the name Gaur might well have associated with Garo. (Gait, page 19). If this view of Edward Gait has to be accepted then the name Gaur has a very crucial link with Goalpara.

Language: The term “Goalparia Bengali” is not only a misnomer but also obviously motivated by a sense of frustrated jingoism. In fact such perverse move has been part of the attempt to dehumanize and de-historicize a nation by robbing them of the legitimacy of their tongue and to dislocating them from their native hearth in order to accomplish a hegemonic agenda of neo colonial imperialism. The people of Goalpara, as if, for the first time began to speak a language, called “Goalparia Bengali”, only after it developed some connection with Bengal. Before that, as it were, the people of Goalpara used to communicate in sign language or through physical gestures. This is certainly not only preposterous but also profusely hilarious.

In 1954, during the State Reconstruction Commission there was a vicious attempt to attach Goalpara with Bengal, a move spearheaded by the then CM of Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Ch. Ray. The people of Goalpara thwarted that attempt under the leadership of Sarat Chandra Sinha by establishing the fact that the language of Goalpara had nothing to do with Bengali. This move of Bengal had forced the people of Goalpara to carry out a massive public movement soon after to remove Bengali language from all vernacular medium schools. (see Satabdit Sarat Ed. Barkatulla Khan, 2013, pp 44; 64-65; 149-150; 215 etc.). Goalparia language which is also variously called Rajbanshi, Kamatapuri and also Desi is an independent language and is entirely different from Bengali language in terms of its linguistic properties like syntax, morphology, lexicography as well as its history (see Rajbanhsi Bhasha Parichay by Dr. D.N. Bhakat, 2000).

Maharaja Naranarayan’s letter to the Ahom King, Swargdeo Sukhampha, in July 1555, is considered as one of the early examples of the Kamatapuri/ Rajbanshi/ Goalparia language, which is also considered as an example of early form of Assamese language which was first published in Asom Banti on 27 June, 1909. Interestingly Dr. Surendranath Sen in his book, Prachin Bangla Patra Sankalan, published in 1942, claimed it to be one of the earliest examples of old Bengali language. (also see Gauri Mohan Ray, Kamata Rajyer Itihas 1998, pages 36-39) Thus Dr. Sen quite candidly admitted that the source of the Bengali language lay in Kamatapur, the language which is still spoken by the people of Goalpara. For the sake of argument one can say that the language spoken in Bengal then can actually be called “Bengali Goalparia” or “Bengali Kamatapuri”. (Though it is as unacceptable as it is absurd and ignominious to utter a term like “Goalparia Bengali”)

Some Influences of Goalpara: However, mutual cultural influences and exchanges are not only inevitable but also welcome. Kamrup Kamata being the seat of shaktism and tantrism, Durga has been one of its reigning goddesses. In 1496 the Koch King Bishva Singha of Kamatapur began the worship of Durga in Coochbehar as part of a royal ritual which is still continuing. (Gait, p. 50 ) The Jaintia Kings also worshiped Durga since 1500 AD from the reign of King Parbat Ray or before (Gait pp. 313-320) In Bengal Durga Puja is recorded in 17th century, gaining popularity only in the 18th century as a festival of the nouveau riche largely celebrated to entertain their British guests. As is evident through the Kalika Purana, a 10th century text of Kamrupa, Kali has been one of the most popular tribal goddesses, which was also the reigning deity of the Chutiya Kings of Sadiya in upper Assam since 13th century (Gait, page no. 43). But Kali was worshipped and became a popular goddess in Bengal only in the 18th century, more than 500 years later than in Assam vis-à-vis in Goalpara. Seemingly, some fundamental aspects of Bengal’s culture then evolved, quite evidently, after Bengal was exposed to Goalpra, at least chronologically.

Coochbehar Annexation: Following Merger Agreement Coochbehar was declared a ‘C’ category state on 12 September, 1949. On 1st January, 1950 Dr. Bidhan Ch. Ray came to Coochbehar and, to the utter shock of the people, declared Coochbehar a district of West Bengal, which was a part of what Dr. Ray himself termed as a “propaganda” (his letter to Patel on 11 May, 1949). He wanted Coochbehar as a buffer zone to accommodate the huge chunk of refugees from East Pakistan. (Capt. Nalini Ranjan Ray, Koch Rajbanshi and Kamatapuri: The Truth Unveiled, 2007, page, 131). This merger of Coochbehar with West Bengal was considered illegal and a great betrayal by the natives of Coochbehar (see Dangor Coochbehar Bashir Koyta Kotha, 2003, Edited by Bongshi Badan Barman of Greater Coochbehar Movement) Since 1950 the native Rajbanshis of Coochbehar observe 1st January every year as the day of betrayal and the beginning of a neo colonial subordination of the natives by Bengal in the most diabolic way just the way it has subjugated the Gorkhalis of Darjeeling.

It may be noted that on 3rd September, 2013 eleven organizations from Assam and Bengal submitted a memorandum to the Union Home Minister demanding removal of the term “North Bengal”. It reads, “The term ‘North Bengal’ is humiliating and insulting to the indigenous people of the region. Hence, the term ‘North Bengal’ should be removed from all public institutions, offices, universities, trains, organizations etc…” (Demand Charter no. 8 of the Memorandum submitted to the Union Home Minister, Govt. of India).

It is a matter of conjecture as to when the demand will be fulfilled, but the deep resentment and volatile anger of the people against the regime of neo colonial oppression cannot be ignored. The term “Goalparia Bengali” is an invention of such neo-colonial rhetoric of subjugation.

(The writer teaches English at NEHU and can be reached at j_prodhani@rediffmail.com)

Read more at http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2014/10/27/goalpara-has-its-own-identity-history-never-lies/#DYWDwpWTWkfJxrJy.99