Assam
Assam (
Assamese: অসম
"xôm) is a
northeastern state of
India with its capital at
Dispur. Located just below the eastern
Himalayan foothills, it is surrounded by the other northeastern states:
Arunachal Pradesh,
Nagaland,
Manipur,
Mizoram,
Tripura and
Meghalaya. Assam and its commercial capital
Guwahati form the gateway to the northeastern states, together called the
seven sisters. These states are connected to the rest of India via Assam's border with
West Bengal and a narrow strip called the "
Chicken's Neck." Assam also shares international borders with
Bhutan and
Bangladesh.
On
February 27,
2006 the cabinet of ministers in Assam adopted a controversial proposal to change the name of the state to
Asom which is yet to be implemented.[
1].
The land of Assam was known by various names in the past---Pragjyotishpura in ancient Hindu scriptures like the
Mahabharata; and
Kamarupa in the early medieval times. After the decline of the Kamarupa kingdom in the
12th century, the land that included a part of the old Kamarupa kingdom and regions to the east of it was ruled by the
Shan people, who called themselves
Tai, but who were called
Ahoms by the others. This kingdom lasted for nearly 600 years. Satyendra Nath Sarma writes [Assamese Literature, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1976]:
While the Shan invaders called themselves Tai, they came to be referred to as Āsām, Āsam and sometimes as Acam by the indigenous people of the country. The modern Assamese word Āhom by which the Tai people are known is derived from Āsām or Āsam. The epithet applied to the Shan conquerors was subsequently transferred to the country over which they ruled and thus the name Kāmarūpa was replaced by Āsām, which ultimately took the Sanskritized form Asama, meaning "unequalled, peerless or uneven" [Banikanta Kakati: Assamese: Its Formation and Development, p2]
Early documented mentions
Therefore, the name Assam is of relatively recent origin. One of the first unambiguous references come from Thomas Bowrey in
1663 about
Mir Jumla's death: "They lost the best of Nabobs, the Kingdome of Acham, and, by consequence, many large privileges" (Bowrey, Thomas, A Geographical Account of Countries around Bay of Bengal, ed Temple, R. C., Hakluyt Society's Publications).
Tavernier's "Travels in India", published in
1676 uses the spelling "Assen" for Assam in the French original. The official chronicler of Mir Jumla too calls the place "Asam" (The Indian Antiquary, July 1887, pp222-226). Most scholars accept that the first known mention of the word Assam today is in a stanza from the
Bhagavata Purana composed/translated in this region about the middle of the
16th century which described the ethnic groups of the region (Srimandbhagavat, skandha 2, H Dattabaruah and Co., Nalbari, pp-38) transcribed in
iTrans:
kiraTa kachhaari khaachi gaaro miri
yavana ka~Nka govaala |
asama maluka dhobaa ye turuka
kubaacha mlechchha chaNDaala
Later adoption
After the fall of the Tai Ahoms and the conquest by the British in
1826, "Assam" was used to denote first the principality of the erstwhile Ahoms, and later the British province. Soon, the province was expanded to include regions that were not part of historical Tai Ahom kingdom. The boundaries of Assam have been redrawn many times after that, but the name Assam remained.
T-shaped, the state consists of the northern
Brahmaputra valley, the middle
Karbi and
Cachar hills and the southern
Barak Valley. It experiences heavy rainfall between March and September, with very high humidity in the summer months. The temperatures are generally mild, never extreme during any season.
Assam is very rich in vegetation, forests and wildlife. Lumber was once a lucrative business, until it was declared illegal by the Supreme Court of India. The region also has a number of reserved forests, and one of them,
Kaziranga, is the home of the rare
Indian Rhinoceros. The state produces a lot of
Bamboo, although the bamboo industry is still nascent. The wildlife, forests and flora, rivers and waterways, have great natural beauty, providing growth in tourism.
High rainfall, deforestation, and other factors have resulted in annual floods that cause widespread loss of life, livelihood and property. An earthquake prone region, Assam has experienced two large earthquakes:
1897 (8.1 on the
Richter scale) and
1950 (8.6).
Assam is divided into 23
districts:
Barpeta,
Bongaigaon,
Cachar,
Darrang,
Dhemaji,
Dhubri,
Dibrugarh,
Goalpara,
Golaghat,
Hailakandi,
Jorhat,
Kamrup,
Karbi Anglong,
Karimganj,
Kokrajhar,
Lakhimpur,
Marigaon,
Nagaon,
Nalbari,
North Cachar Hills,
Sibsagar,
Sonitpur, and
Tinsukia.
Assam is a multiethnic society. Forty five different languages are spoken by different communities in Assam. The state is the meeting place of three major language families:
Austroasiatic (5),
Sino-Tibetan (24) and
Indo-European (12). Three of the spoken languages do not fall in these families. There is a high degree of bilingualism.
The number of ethnic communities in the state is very large. The People of India project (POI) has studied 115 communities. Of these 79 (69%) identify themselves regionally, 22 (19%) identify themselves locally, and 3 communities identify themselves transnationally.
The benefit of development in Assam is relatively evenly spread. It has a larger representation of leadership in panchayat and regional levels and a relative gender equality.
Main article: History of Assam
Pre-historic and ancient Assam
Assam and adjoining regions have evidence of human settlement from all periods of the
Stone ages. That the known hills settlements belonged to earlier periods may suggest that the valleys were populated later, or it may reflect sampling bias due to mountainous areas being more likely to remain less disturbed over long stretches of time.
The earliest ruler according to legend was a
mlechchha (non-Aryan) ruler named Mahiranga (sanskritized form of the Tibeto-Burman name Mairang). He was followed by others in his line: Hatakasura, Sambarasura, Ratnasura and Ghatakasura. Naraka removed this line of rulers and established his own dynasty. Historians consider Naraka's victory over the
mlechchha rulers to mark the beginning of
sanskritization in this region. The Naraka king mentioned at various places in Kalika Purana,
Mahabharata and
Ramayana covering a wide period of time were probably different rulers from the same dynasty.
Kalika Purana, a sanskrit text compiled in Assam in the 9th and
10th century, mentions that the last of the Naraka rulers, Narakasura, was slain by
Krishna. His son Bhagadatta, mentioned in the Mahabharata, fought for the
Kauravas in the battle of Kurushetra with an army of
kiratas,
chinas and
dwellers of the eastern coast. Later rulers of
Kamarupa frequently drew their lineage from the Naraka rulers.
Medieval Assam
Medieval Assam was known as
Kamarupa or Kamata, and was ruled by many dynasties. Chief among them was the
Varman Dynasty (
350-
650). During the rule of the greatest of the Varman kings, Bhaskarvarman (
600-
650), a contemporary of
Harshavardhana of Kanauj, the Chinese traveler
Xuanzang visited the region, and recorded his travels. The other dynasties that ruled the region were the
Kacharis, the
Chutias etc. that belonged to the Indo-Tibetan groups.
Two later kingdoms left the biggest impact in the region. The
Ahoms, a
Tai group, ruled eastern Assam for nearly 600 years (
1228-
1826). The
Koch, a
Tibeto-Burmese/
Dravidian group, established their sovereignty in
1510 which later extended to western Assam and northern Bengal. The Koch kingdom later split into two. The western kingdom became a vassal of the
Moghuls whereas the eastern kingdom became an Ahom satellite state.
In spite of numerous invasions from the west, mostly by Muslim rulers, no western power could establish its rule in Assam until the advent of the British. The most successful invader was
Mir Jumla, a governor of
Aurangzeb, who briefly occupied Gargaon the then capital of the Ahoms (
1662-
1663). He found it difficult to control the people, who carried on
guerrilla attacks on his forces and forced his army to leave the region. The last attempt by the Moghuls under the command of Raja Ram Singh resulted in the victory for the Ahoms at
Saraighat (
1671) under the Ahom general
Lachit Borphukan.
British conquest
Ahom palace intrigue (and political turmoil resulting from the
Moamoria rebellion) aidedthe expansionist Burmese ruler of Ava to invade Assam and install a puppet king in
1821. With the Burmese having reached the doorsteps of the
East India Company's borders, the
First Anglo-Burmese War ensued, in which Assam was one of the sectors. The war ended with the
Treaty of Yandaboo in
1826, and the East India Company took control of the region.
Under British Administration, Assam was made a part of the British India province called the
Bengal Presidency. Sometime about 1905-1912, Assam was separated and erected as a separate province of Assam.
At the time of independence of India, it consisted of the original Ahom kingdom, the present-day Arunachal Pradesh (North East Frontier Agency), Naga Hills, original Kachari kingdom, Lushai Hills, and
Garo,
Khasi and
Jaintia Hills. Of the Assam province on the eve of Independence,
Sylhet choose to join Pakistan in a referendum; and the two princely states Manipur and Tripura became Group C provinces. The capital was
Shillong.
Post independence
After the independence from British rule in
1947, Assam spawned four more states to become one of the
seven sister states in the 1960s and 1970s. The new states were
Arunachal Pradesh,
Nagaland,
Mizoram and
Meghalaya. The capital of Assam, which was in
Shillong, had to be moved to
Dispur, now a part of an expanding
Guwahati.
In 1961, the Government of Assam passed a legislature making the usage of Assamese language compulsory. The legislature resulted in widespread protest across Assam, particularly by the significant non-Assamese speaking minority. In one such incident, 11 Bengalis were killed due to police firing in Silchar in southern Assam on May 19th. Coming under intense pressure, the Government withdrew the legislation.
In the 1980s the Brahmaputra valley saw a six-year
Assam Agitation that began
non-violently but became increasingly violent. The movement was triggered by the discovery of a sudden rise in electorates in electoral rolls. The movement tried to force the government to identify and deport foreigners who, the natives maintained, are illegally inundating the land from neighboring Bangladesh and changing the demographics. Critics called it a xenophobic reaction of a racist people. The agitation ended after an accord between the leaders of the agitation and the Union Government. Most of the accord remains unimplemented today, a cause for a simmering discontent.
This was followed by demands for greater autonomy especially by the
Bodos in the later 1980s and 1990s. The period also saw the growth of armed secessionist groups like
United Liberation Front of Asom (
ULFA) and
National Democratic Front of Bodoland (
NDFB). The union government responded by deploying the Indian army to control the situation in November 1990, leading to claims of human rights violations. The Indian army deployment has now been institutionalized under a
Unified Command. Worsening inter-ethnic relationships also marked this period.
The 2000s saw inter-ethnic killings, especially in the Karbi and Cachar hills (e.g the
Hmar-
Dimasa conflict).
Assamese and
Bodo are the official languages of the state. Linguisticallymodern Assamese traces its roots to eastern
Magadhan Prakrit, with strong influences fromthe
Tibeto-Burman and
Mon-Khmer languages which are spoken by indegenous ethnic groups in the region. Bodo is a Tibeto-Burman language. Bengali is the second most spoken language in the state, and the predominant language in the Barak Valley, the largest city of which is Silchar.
Assamese culture is a rich conglomerate of ethnic practices and assimilated beliefs. When the Tai Ahoms entered the region in
1228, they had their own cultural features. Over the six centuries of their rule, they adopted the local language, religion and cultural customs, and embellished it with their own to such an extent that it puts them apart from medieval rulers of India. This is one reason why Assamese culture is so rich in heritage and values.
Gamosa
The
Gamosa is an article of great significance for the people of Assam. Literally translated, it means 'something to wipe the body with' (
Ga=body,
mosa=to wipe); interpreting the word "gamosa" as the body-wiping towel is misleading. It is generally a white rectangular piece of cloth with primarily a red border on three sides and red woven motifs on the fourth (in addition to red, other colors are also used). Though it is used daily to wipe the body after a bath (an act of purification), the use is not restricted to this. It is used by the farmer as a waistcloth (
tongali) or a loincloth (
suriya); a Bihu dancer wraps it around the head with a fluffy knot. It is hung around the neck at the prayer hall and was thrown over the shoulder in the past to signify social status. Guests are welcomed with the offering of a
gamosa and
tamul (
betel nut) and elders are offered
gamosas (
bihuwaan) during
Bihu. It is used to cover the altar at the prayer hall or cover the scriptures. An object of reverence is never placed on the bare ground, but always on a
gamosa. One can therefore, very well say, that the
gamosa symbolizes the life and culture of Assam.
The word
gamosa is derived from the Kamrupi word
gaamasa (
gaama+
chadar), the cloth used to cover the Bhagavad
Purana at the altar. The equivalent word in
Oriya is spelled as
gaamu + cha = gamucha.
Significantly the
gamosa is used equally by all irrespective of religious and ethnic backgrounds.
Bihu
Main article: Bihu
Bihu is the national festival of Assam. Primarily a festival celebrated to mark the seasons and the significant points of a cultivator's life over a yearly cycle, in recent times the form and nature of celebration has changed with the growth of urban centers. A non-religious festival, all communities-take part in it. Three Bihus are celebrated:
rongali, celebrates the coming of spring and the beginning of the sowing season;
kongali, the barren bihu when the fields are lush but the barns are empty; and the
bhogali, the thanksgiving when the crops have been harvested and the barns are full.Rongali ,kongali & bhogali bihu are also known as 'bohag bihu','kati bihu'& 'magh bihu'respectivly.The day before the each bihu is known as 'uruka'.There are unique features of each bihu.The first day of 'rongali bihu' is called 'Goru bihu'(the bihu of the cows).On this day the cows are taken to the nearby rivers or ponds to be bathed.Cows takes a special position among the people of Assam.
Durga Puja
Other than Bihu,
Durga Puja is also celebrated in Assam with great pomp and splendour, although this might be a cultural effect of the millions of Bengali people living in the state -- for whom Durga Pooja is a very important event every year. Even then, the entire state rejoices during Durga Puja, a festival that signifies the victory of good over evil.
Music
Assam, being the home to many ethnic groups and different cultures, is very rich in folk music. The indigenous folk music has in turn influenced the growth of a modern idiom, that finds expression in the music of such artists like
Bhupen Hazarika, Rudra Baruah, Parbati Prasad Baruah, Jayanta Hazarika, Khagen Mahanta among many others. See also
Music of Assam.
|
The per capita income of Assam was higher than the national average soon after Indian Independence. But it has slipped since, and the difference has become larger since liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1980s. |
Macro-economic trend
This is a chart of trend of gross state domestic product of Assam at market prices
estimated by
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation with figures in millions of Indian Rupees.
| Year ¦¦ Gross State Domestic Product |
|---|
| 1980 | 25,160 |
| 1985 | 56,730 |
| 1990 | 106,210 |
| 1995 | 194,110 |
| 2000 | 314,760 |
Assam's gross state domestic product for 2004 is estimated at $13 billion in current prices.
Agriculture
Assam's biggest contribution to the world is its
tea. Assam produces some of the finest and most expensive teas in the world (see
Assam tea). Other than the Chinese tea variety
Camellia sinensis, Assam is the only region in the world that has its own variety of tea, called
Camellia assamica. Assam tea is grown at elevations near sea level, giving it a malty sweetness and an earthy flavor, as opposed to the more floral aroma of highland (e.g.
Darjeeling,
Taiwanese) teas.
The tea industry developed by the British planters brought in labour from as far as
Bihar and
Orissa and their descendents form a significant demographic group in the state.
Oil industry
Assam also produces
crude oil and
natural gas. Assam is the second place in the world (after Titusville in the
United States) where
petroleum was discovered. Asia's first successful mechanically drilled oil well was drilled in Makum (Assam) way back in 1867. The second oldest oil well in the world still produces crude oil. Most of the oilfields of Assam are located in the Upper Assam region of the
Brahmaputra Valley. Assam has four oil refineries located at
Guwahati,
Digboi, Numaligarh and
Bongaigaon with a total capacity of 7 MMTPA (Million Metric Tonnes per annum).
Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals is the only
S&P CNX 500 conglomerate with corporate office in Assam. Its gross income for 2005 was Rs.56,740 million.
The region was part of the
British Empire and most of the nationalities of this region were integrated peacefully into the new country. Unfortunately economic indexes of the region, which were above average before independence, began to fall compared to the rest of the country.
Militant groups began forming along ethnic lines after Independence, and demands for sovereignty grew, resulting in the new states of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram in the 1970s.
ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom), and
NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland) are two major militant groups that came into existence in the 1980s, leading to a strong military crackdown. The low-intensity military conflict has been continuing for more than a decade now without an end to the insurgency at sight. High rural unemployment adds to this insurgency.
At the turn of the last century (1900s), people from present-day Bangladesh migrated to Assam, encouraged by British to increase agricultural production and thus revenue. The migration still continues today under political patronage of the Congress party. The British tea planters imported labour from central India to work in the estates adding to the demographic canvas.
Like
indigenous peoples in other parts of the world, the many ethnic groups of this region struggle to maintain their cultural heritage. There are active autonomy movements in the
Bodo and
Karbi dominated regions. In recent times, ethnicity based militant groups have mushroomed (NDFB, BLT, UPDS, DHD, KLO, HPCD etc.) leading to violent inter-ethnic conflicts (e.g. the Hmar-Dimasa conflict).
*
History of Assam*
Cuisine of Assam*
Economy of Assam*
Music of Assam*
List of political parties in the state*
Professionals of the Northeast India across the world*
Assam Flowers*
Voice of the Northeast India*
Assam Profile from the
Assam Government website
*
Risk Assessment for Assamese in India from University of Maryland
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