Book review
By Glenn C. Kharkongor
Rediscovering History of Assam
Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary
Global Net Publication
409 pp. Rs 599
For a lover of books, who has an armchair interest in history, this book provides a readable overview of the history of Assam. The northeast of India is the most diverse region of the subcontinent, and perhaps the planet. The region was an ancient corridor for the early migrations of humankind, providing a land bridge between the Himalayas in the north and the seas in the south. This land bridge remained intact even in the periods of glacial maximum, enabling early indigenous wanderers to cross over to southeast Asia and then all the way to Australia, just by walking over now-submerged pathways.
The book thus begins with the protohistory of Assam, alluding to folk tales and mediaeval texts, and archeological, linguistic and genetic data. It describes the ebbs and flows of the myriad migratory groups that descended on Assam from all directions, even from across the Himalayas. This chapter contains some interesting nuggets. The first king of Pragjyotisha, Guwahati’s old name, was Mairang, which is now the name of a town in the West Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya.
Because he is not a historian, the author is not restricted by the boring confines of academia. Mooshahary uses adjectives and adverbs freely and colourfully, and he is not hesitant to delve into folklore and other asides. Hence the book reads more like a tale rather than a treatise. All the same, he has marshalled the facts and documented evidence well, and the book is therefore authentic and authoritative.
Apart from the Brahmaputra Valley and a few other pockets, northeast India is a land of hill tribes. Interwoven into this history of Assam, are interesting accounts of the origins and migrations of the main tribal groups of the region. For example, we are told that the Bodos came from two directions, through Sikkim and Arunachal. The book covers religion and morals, rituals and customs, languages and word origins, family and marriage, arts and crafts, all contributing to the social evolution of Assam and its neighbours.
The book is liberally interspersed with black and white and colour pictures, adding immensely to the readability and enjoyment of the text. While this volume is ostensibly a history of Assam, there are liberal asides to the history and peoples of the other northeast states, demonstrating the intertwined history and fortunes of the entire region.
In fact, there is an entire chapter devoted to “The Major Tribes of Meghalaya”. Apart from the historical interconnectedness of the Assam and Meghalaya states, perhaps the author’s affinity for Meghalaya stems from his personal ties to the state when he was its governor. He is therefore knowledgeable and perceptive about the people and their history, though some of his inferences are speculative. For example, he ties the immigration of the Khasi to the beginning of the Meghalayan Age.
For those familiar with the history of Meghalaya and its main tribes, there will be much agreement with Mooshahary’s account. While the Jaintias (Pnar) have a history of kings, wars, treaties, coins and other trappings of royalty, he describes the Khasi also as having a martial history, and praises the Garo for their indomitable warriors. In his descriptions of culture and traditions he acknowledges the distinctiveness of the tribal religion, unlike the Census of India which for some unknown reason, clubs all tribal faiths in India with Hinduism.
Some of the material in the book is outdated and perhaps erroneous. Material from Wiki, by its very nature, while sometimes interesting and informative, may not be scientifically complete or updated. For example, the map titled “Migration of Linguistic Groups” (page not numbered) has been taken from Wikimedia Commons. It shows the migration of the Austro-Asiatic speakers into Assam as coming from the southeast about 5000 years ago. The source quoted is HK Barpujari, who edited, “The Comprehensive History of Assam”, which was published in 1990, more than three decades ago. Since then, there has been a surge of genetic evidence that shows that the Austro-Asiatic people came from the west, and much earlier. The Wiki map itself mistakenly labels the Austro-Asiatic route as Tibeto-Burman.
Another map, also from Wiki Commons shows Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages as separate groups. In the more recent classification, the new term is Indo-Iranian. There is a growing trend among scholars and sociologists to drop the word ‘Aryan.’ According to Encyclopedia Britannica, from “the late 20th and early 21st centuries, many white supremacist groups used the word Aryan in their name as an identifier of their racist ideology. That association with racism, crime, hate crimes, and Nazism has given the word a powerful new negative sense.”
What motivates a career police officer to write a history book? In Chapter 10, “The Lessons of History”, he says, “It is important to encourage people to read history irrespective of their profession”. The chapter is a discourse on the importance of history, especially for us in the northeast of India, where many groups dream of sovereignty, where internecine conflict is common and the region is hemmed in on all sides by foreign countries. With a siege mentality, we lose sight of the many advantages of the northeast.
The past sometimes reappears in the future. According to Mooshahary, “Opium cultivation and consumption was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Ahom dynasty. It destroyed their martial strength and debilitated the mental faculty of some of the later royals.” The opium trade route from Bengal to China transited through Assam. David Scott estimated that three-fourths of the population including men, women and children, were opium eaters. The British cleverly used this dependance to levy high taxes, without discouraging the addiction. The opium trade is one of the antecedents for the present imbroglio in Manipur.
Once I started reading the book, it was hard to put down. Interesting facts, stories and analyses can be found on every page. Leadership, governance and administration are the key elements of the rise and fall of every regime in history. One senses these factors as exemplified in the career of the author himself. RS Mooshahary was perhaps the most effective governor of Meghalaya, remembered most for his leadership of the state during President’s Rule in 2009, when for two months, the Secretariat functioned with punctuality and traffic was orderly.