arak Valley is a rather newish christening for erstwhile Cachar
district. This tract of land in the southern periphery of Assam is home
to around 4 million populations a massive eighty percent of whom are
Bengali speaking spread over the three districts of Cachar, Karimganj
and Hailakandi.
Language, it is a known fact, is the Achilles’ Hill in the whole of the
North-East India where the process of building sub-nationality has, for
the last one hundred years or so, veered around language apart from
ethnicity. The historical sequence started with the assertion of
Assamese nationalism during the dawn of the twentieth century which was
pitted against the Bengali speaking community out of paranoia. The
British colonial design was the mastermind behind sowing the seeds of
anti-Bengali sentiments among the Assamese middle class. Economic
factors further aggravated the deprivation theory which continued
through out the remaining part of the pre-colonial and also well into
the post-colonial Assam.
The fear psychosis that the Bengali domination would not only close the
avenues of employment for the Assamese youth, but, more than that, would
surely destroy the Assamese language and culture drove the political
rulers of Assam to take anti-Bengali steps on numerous occasions. And
the worst of it happened in 1960 when the Assam Government passed the
nefarious Official Language Act making Assamese the only official State
language other than English. The people of the then Cachar district went
all out in protest against this Act the provisions of which they
rightly felt would deprive them of their legitimate linguistic right. It
was a mass upsurge and the chauvinist Assam Government came down
heavily on the democratic movement in a violent way. Situation went to a
grave pass when on 19 May 1961 police resorted to firing on unarmed
Satyagrahis in Silchar Railway Station that left eleven people dead one
among them being a woman, Kamala Bhattacharjee. Incidentally, she was
the first woman language martyr of the world. In the face of more
intensified democratic agitation aided by popular support from all over
the country the Assam Government finally yielded. In that year itself
suitable amendment was brought in to the Official Language Act 1960
accommodating Bengali as the official language for the whole of Cachar
district.
But, unfortunately, the xenophobic mindset of the State Government did
not change and, as a result, clandestine designs of infringing on the
linguistic right of the Bengali of Assam have remained unabated in the
State. On 17 August 1972, one more language activist laid down life in
Karimganj in protest against the circular of Gauhati University which
sought to make Assamese the only medium of instruction in the State
colleges.
On 21 July 1986 two more brave souls sacrificed their lives in Karimganj
during an agitation programme protesting against the draconian Board of
Secondary Education of Assam circular which struck down Bengali as one
of the media of instruction in the State school education.
On 16 March 1996, one woman activist embraced martyrdom in the Valley for the cause of her mother tongue, Bishnupriya Manipuri.
This holy territory of Barak Valley thus has a glorious tradition of
language movement spanning a half-a-century period. This protest culture
is perhaps the only way to cherish the plural and multi-cultural fabric
of the State of Assam.