From 20th July 2012, the flames of ethnic violence has again engulfed Assam in a big way. The problem between two local communities have taken communal proportions that have resonance in the national politics. It has led to an internal migration of 5 lakh people which is unparalleled in the history of Post Partitioned India. I am aware that I am no scholar on the issue nor do i have the competence to handle an issue of such vast complexities. As a citizen of India and a part of civil society, I am curious to understand the problem and understand different people of varying historical background and ethos. So in our quest to know people, let us try to grapple with the Community of Bodos.
Brief History of Bodos
The Bodo people are believed to be migrants of ancient Chinese origin and their language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family. G.A. Grierson in his “The Linguistic Survey of India -“1903” has given a table of tribes that shows inclusion of a large number of tribes of this language group of which the Bodo and the Dimasa of Assam and the Boroks of Tripura are the major components. The date of migration from their original abode, namely, Northwestern China, to this part of present India is debated and needs further research. However scholars agree that the Bodo people settled in this region much before the Aryans.
The extension of Aryan culture and their settlement in this region began only in the last part of the first century of the Christian era. From mythological to historical period, hundreds of Bodo kings ruled under different dynasties. The Asura Dynasty, the Kirata Dynasty, the Mlecha Dynasty, the Varman Dynasty, the Sala Stambha Dynasty, the Pralambha Dynasty, the Pala Dynasty, the Khena Dynasty, the Koch Dynasty, the Kachari Dynasty and the Borok or Tripuri Dynasty ruled before the British came and annexed their territories deceitfully. Even under the British empire Koch Bihar and Tripura remained independent princely states. The princely states – the Koch Bihar and the Tripura were annexed forcibly by India on August 28 and October 15, 1949 respectively.
The Boro, also known as Bodo, at a time not only appear to have formed solid bloc of the Mongoloid people but also ruled throughout the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys, with extension in Cachar Hills of Assam with Dimapur as the capital and Tripura, Bihar, and in some parts of Nepal, West Bengal, Bihar and Bangladesh.
The Borok, Dimasa, Garo, Koch, Chutiya, Moran, Sonowal, Lalung, Tengial, Rabha, Mech, and Hajong are historically, ethnically and linguistically of same ancestor. Since the historically untraced ages, the Bodo had exercised their highly developed political, legal and socio- cultural entity. Though scattered, today the majority of Bodo lives on the foothills of the Himalayan Ranges in the north bank of the Brahmaputra river or river Dilao.
The Bodo people lived as a free nation with dignity and honor till the British invaded and annexed their dominions. The Eastern Bodo Kingdom fell victim to the conspiracy of British Imperialist just after the Treaty of Yandabu, 24th February, 1826 . King Erakdao, who was converted to Hinduism and rechristened as Gobinda Chandra was reinstated in his throne only as a puppet king. When he died without any descendants, either lineal or adopted, the country was annexed by a proclamation dated the 14th August, 1832. And also when Tula Ram Senapati or General Tula Ram died in 1854 his sovereign territory was annexed to Nowgaon District of British India.
Meanwhile, the Northern territory at the foot hills of Bhutan (Himalayan Ranges) remain independent under Jaolia Dewan till it was annexed by the British after the Treaty of Buxa, 1864, ratified in 1867. The Southern and Western Boro Kingdoms Tripura and Koch Bihar remained semi independent native states till they were forced to join the newly born independent state- India.
Cultural Moorings of the Bodo Tribe
Music, musical instruments, oral traditions, dances are the different textures of the Bodo culture. One can find the surnames of Bodo Tribe as Bargayary, Bodosa, Boro, Owary, Wary, Ishwary, Goyary & Dwimary. Bodos have quite exquisite dresses which are exhilirating the beauty and glamours of women. Dokna is the dress worn by Bodo women which they themselves knit on their own hands. Shawls form the major fashion among Bodos and thus loom is the most important thing used in the courtyard of the Bodo House. The famous folk dances of Bodo Tribe such as Bardaichikhla and Bagurumba are extremely colorful. The Bodo Tribal community follows a common system of marriage in all villages. Elders in the village fix the bride. Bride money is paid and they do not marry from other communities. Sunday is the best day for a Bodo Wedding. There have a taboo against marrying within the same clan. The groom is asked to stay with his father-in-law's family. The customs of Bodos have a ritualistic naming ceremony, when a cock is offered to the Gods for the welfare of the baby.
Creation Concept of Bodos and Their Religious Beliefs
Religion plays an important role in the life of Bodos. The Bodo people have their own concept of creation. According to their concept, before the creation of the universe, there was simply a great void, in which, the Supreme Being ‘Aham Guru’, Anan Binan Gosai or Obonglaori, existed formlessly. The supreme God Aham Guru became tired of living a formless existence and desired to live in flesh and blood. He descended on this great void with all human characteristics. Thereafter, he created the universe. Aham Guru at his first appearance in this universe in the form of a man called himself ‘Sri Borai’, ‘Jiw Borai’ or ‘Siw Borai (Sanskritised as Shiva).’ He then created his consort ‘Sri Buroi’, and then created ‘Dari Muba’ and ‘Singri Coba’, a couple for the propagation of the human population on the earth. ‘Jiw Borai’ or ‘Siw Borai’ is also popularly known as the ‘Bathou Borai’ among the Boro people. ‘Bathou Borai’ is thus their supreme God, and the religion they follow is known as ‘Bathousim’, after the name of their God. Besides, there are a number of minor gods who function under the umbrella of ‘Bathou Borai.’ They are broadly divided into household gods and village gods. The household gods are worshipped in the homestead, while the latter by the whole village collectively outside in a selected place called ‘Thansali.’
Bathouism is based on five moral and spiritual principles, namely (i) Principle of holy realization, (ii) Principle of holy practice (iii) Principle of love (iv) Principle of truth and (v) Principle of avoidance/abstinence. The principle of holy realization includes Bathou as the supreme God. The realization of one’s own soul is the part of Bathou and realization of the need of good in this world. The principle of holy practice emphasizes meditation, conversation on religious and spiritual matters and charitable donation to the poor. The principle of love includes love for God, love for fellow being, love for family and love for all living beings. The principle of truth emphasizes leading a truthful life and the principle of avoidance/abstinence urges one to abstain from committing antisocial activities or deeds like stealing, telling lies, adultery, murder and association with bad company.
Bathouism has thus a religious philosophy, which defines the basis of a religion, and it is therefore far from being animistic. The Boro society and religion has undergone assimilation and changes through several centuries, particularly with the advent of the Aryan culture in the 7th century A.D. to the present eastern India. The Boro conversion to Aryan culture started from the rule of the Varman dynasty. The Boro kings first converted themselves to Hinduism. Then followed the conversion of the masses which was followed by subsequent assimilation of the converts to Indo-Aryan fold through the ladder of caste hierarchy.
Genesis of the Bodoland Movement
Bijoy Daimary, Associate Professor in the Department of History in the Union Christian College, Meghalaya says that the awakening among the Bodos is a by-product of English Education. though microscopic in size, the spread of english education produced a few educated Bodos who began analyzing Bodo society and economy in the light of Western Science and rationalism. The early Bodo intellectuals introduced reforms for the removal of evil practices in the Bodo Society. They opened schools and boarding homes and made education compulsory for children. Thus began awakening among Bodos, which was meager, initially but grew in number and momentum in later years. The first step of the awakening was when during the British rule the Assam Kachari Juvok Sonmiloni and the Boro Juvok Sonmiloni submitted a memorandum to the then visiting Simon Commission (1928-29) demanding recognition as distinct tribal society and as separate from the Hindu society. They demanded that the people be identified as Boro in the census Report of British India and a separate Boro Regiment in military service of British India Government. In the Pre- Independence Era, the consciousness of the Bodo intellectuals culminated in the formation of the Tribal League, a political organization in 1933 which was able to win 5 Assembly seats in the 1937 election. From 1939 - 1946 the Tribal League played an important role in the state politics , forming two coalition Governments once with the Assam Congress Committee and other with the Assam The Bodo representatives to the Convention of the Assam Tribes and Races Federation, held from the 21st to 23rd March 1947, at the Khasi National Durbar Hall, Shillong , were unanimous that historically , Assam proper, with its hill was never a part or province of India and that the people, particularly the Tribes and Races inhabiting are historically and culturally different from the peoples of rest of the India and therefore opposed to Assam proper with its hill being included in any division of India –Pakistan or Hindustan and demanded that it should be constituted into a separate free state. The representatives also vehemently opposed the migration or civilian aggression in our land from the neighbouring areas of British India.
In the post-Independence set-up, the Assamese, by their relative advancement and larger population, got an upper hand in the power structure, resources, social benefits and opportunities, which on other hand , created a sense of deprivation among the ethnic groups. The struggle of the Hill Tribes, like the Nagas and Mizos highlight the sense of deprivation that the new administrative of assam had inculcated. The tribals of the Assam Plains, of which Bodos are a prominent constituent community, had equal reasons to be disgruntled. The utmost priority of the Bodos was to seek constitutional safeguard of their society and economy from outside encroachers- a society which they considered as distinctive from others, and their agricultural economy which was heavily dependent on the availability of land. Such a move by Bodos was warranted as large scale encroachment of land was in existence from the rule of the British Raj. The Tribal league, in accordance with their concern, made a pre- election pact with the Assam Congress Committee in 1946. The Congress made an amendment in Chapter X of the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886. 33 tribal belts and blocks comprising the the tribal compact areas was carved out. The regulation made buying or acquiring land by non- tribals, within the belts and blocks illegal. On paper this was enough to safeguard the interests of the communities. But successive Governments of assam perpetrated administrative loopholes in such an enormous way that the regulation proved itself deficient. As a result, there was large scale occupation of tribal lands by East Pakistan/ Bangladeshi immigrants, bonafide non- tribal Indians and the Assamese. In 1980 there was an amendment made to Chapter X, 1886 Bill of Assam Land and Revenue Regulation that recognized the scheduled caste groups and the Bengali immigrants settled in tribal blocks till 1971 as legal land owners. This broke the tribal compactness of the area with the fear of being an ineffective minority. This became a major source of violent conflicts among the ethnic and religious groups of the Assam plains. The Bodos held the Assamese Government responsible for lacking the political will to enforce the land regulation. Such perception of injustice further strained the relations between Bodos and the Assamese.
Rise of Bodo Nationalism and the Politics of Language
It is in such a context of injustice and perception of deprivation that the Bodo intellectuals began mobilizing the community for the separateness of their identity. Bodo intellectuals chose language as the most viable symbol for mobilization of identity politics. With this objective they formed the Bodo Sahitya Sabha (B.S.S.), a literary organization. But the nascent Bodo language came face to face with Assamese language nationalism, which in 1960 launched a movement for the introduction of Assamese as the official language of the state. This was a volcano that led insecurity among many ethnic tribes to feel insecure. One needs to bear in mind that the state of Meghalaya was formed as a reaction to the imposition of the Assamese language. The Bodos took offence of this move and B.S.S. launched an agitation demanding introduction of Bodo as the medium of introduction in Bodo Majority areas. After a prolonged agitation, the Bodo medium was introduces in 1963, which was later on, was upgraded to secondary level schools.
In the meanwhile The Bodo script movement was one of the longest movements of the BSS. According to Bishnu Prasad Rabha the Bodos had a script of their own called Deodhai script (D.P.Barooa 1979). The Bodo movement took on a new form by 1974 when udayachal (Bodoland) demand was pushed in to the background and the Bodos wanted the introduction of Roman scripts. In the wake of wide spread violence, the state government passed the buck to the centre, which requested the PTCA and BSS to accept Devanagari instead, which it did in April 1975. Bodo organizations however continue to demand for Roman Script and it became a continuous problem till date.
Development of Bodoland Movement
The above stated situation intensified the perception that Bodos needed a separate State. The compactness of the blocks and belts were only of paper value and the threat of immigrants exposed the threat to Bodo identity. A drastic shift was found in the process of the Bodoland movement when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced on 13th January, 1967 that Assam would be reorganized on the basis of federal structure. As a response to this announcement, All Bodo Students Union was formed on 15th February of 1967 and it was followed by the formation of Plains Tribal Council of Assam on 27thFebruary of the same year. Both ABSU and PTCA warmly welcomed the decision of the centre to reorganize Assam on federal structure. ‘The PTCA, for the first time submitted memorandum to the then President of India Dr. Zakir Hussain on the 20th May, 1967 at New Delhi for the creation of an ‘Autonomous Region’ for plains tribal people of Assam. The wave of demand of Autonomous Region gradually got momentum and thus Autonomous Region was upgraded to the demand of ‘Union Territory’ which was nomenclated as ‘UDAYACHAL’ on 7thJanuary, 1973.’ But misunderstanding developed between ABSU and PTCA when PTCA leaders announced on 4th April 1977 that PTCA has given up the demand UDAYACHAL with the status of Union Territory and wanted to experiment with only an Autonomous Region within Assam.
Another milestone in the evolution of the Bodoland movement came under the leadership of Upendranath Brahma, the then president of ABSU. Under his leadership movement for separate Bodoland was launched on 2nd March, 1987. They created a political wing of ABSU named Bodo Peoples Action Committee (BPAC) which supported the separate Bodoland movement. After several years of movement an agreement was signed on 20th February, 1993 which is also called as Bodo Accord and Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC) was created. But it failed to fulfil the aspirations of the Bodo people. BAC was created under the state Act and thus it existed at the mercy of State government. It was also mentioned in the agreement that the large forest areas of Indo-Bhutan International border on which the Bodo people are dependant for their daily livelihood would not be included within BAC. Thus, another phase of the movement was launched in 1996 by the Bodoland Liberation Tigers (B.L.T.) which finally culminated into another agreement that was signed on10th February, 2003 and Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) was formed carving out 4 Districts of Western Assam. They are Chirang, Baksa, Kokhrajhar and Udalgiri. But it also left the Bodo people unsatisfied as Bodo leaders felt that the identity, freedom and all round prosperity of the Bodos, for which the movement was launched, was not realized under BTC also. The second Bodo peace talks was result of negotiation between the Bodo Liberation Tiger (BLT), the Central Government and the Assam Government. Following the peace accord, BLT was required to surrender all their arms and converted into Bodoland People's Front (BPF), a political party now ruling the Council. Whereas, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) another armed outfit are in ceasefire talks with the Central Government. Meanwhile, the All Bodo Student's Union (ABSU) has intensified its democratic movement for a separate state. However, there seemed to lack of consensus on the part of political leaders to solve the Bodo debacle once and for all. As result of which today, the entire Bodoland region is on the volcano of unrest.
Conclusion
The present violence that started at Kokhrajhar is a very complex issue. For that the other side of the story of Bangladeshi Immigrants needs to be analysed. This issue will be dealt in a separate article. But the effort of this article is not to justify one side or to advocate a position. The struggles of the Bodo Community and the fight for the identity is a long battle and a very sensitive one. The destruction of the traditional ethos and the loss of land is partly responsible for the spiralling riots and violence in Western Assam. I hope and pray that this article helps in appreciating the culture and concerns of the Bodo Tribe rather than just simplistically classifying them as violence frenzy tribe of the North East. To my opinion, the umbrella cover of Northeast itself is inherently violent that strives to homogenize a land that has more than 200 tribes and ethnicities.
Rev Merin Mathew
Priest of the Northeast Parishes of the Mar Thoma Church
Guwahati
good article, i completely empathize with bodo people
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