In both, Gorkhaland and Kamtapur, the movements, demands for the recognition of the respective languages and cultures played important roles. All India Gorkha League caught the Hill people's imagination by launching a movement, demanding recognition of the Nepali language in 1950s. After a spell of quibbling, the B C Roy government made Nepali the official language of the three Hill sub-divisions in 1961. But the demand for its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution remained unheeded for long. The former Prime Minister, Morarji Desai rejected the demand in 1981, dubbing it as an alien language. Finally, the Centre accepted the demand in 1992 in wake of the long-drawn endeavour of former Sikkimese chief minister, Nar Bahadur Bhandari and the CPI-M in Bengal.
In case of the Kamtapur statehood movement, the demand for recognition of the Kamrupi/ Kamtapuri language plays an important role too. The protagonists of statehood claim this is an original language that was widely spoken in the Kamtapur/ Kamrup region. But the intelligentsia of the community tends to dismiss this demand whenever raised. According to them, Kamtapuri is a mere dialect of standard Bengali. Several scholars have, however, affirmed that the Kamta language was not a dialect of Bengali but a thriving language from which both Bengali and Assamese originated. We may cite here what Dr T C Rastogir wrote in Maulana Azad Academy Journal (May 1-31) 1993. "The Kamata language should not be regarded as a mere dialect of Bengali or Assamese languages. It is the language in which the first vernacular writings of the region were attempted and may be called the root of the present Bengali and Assamese languages." The debate drags on with no possibility of a conclusion in sight.
On the plane of culture, both the movements signify revolts against the Kolkata-centric socio-cultural hegemony of the mainland state over its peripheries-demanding to be unshackled from the cramping fetters of such bondage.
However, freed from the trappings of cultural assertions, this means craving of the elitist sections of their respective societies for their dues-political/cultural/economic empowerment-in the changing trajectory when the 'centre' keeps losing its former glow with the moral force being squeezed out of it.
However, the two movements are different when it comes to identity. While the Gorkhaland movement is simple in its texture of identity the Kamtapur movement keeps encountering immense complexities on the identity of the people the separation is meant for. And herein is hidden the element of insecurity that keeps haunting the movement ~ an element that makes it different from the Gorkhaland movement. It must be mentioned here though that there are controversies over the identity of genuine Indian Gorkhas as differentiated from the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty beneficiaries. But things become clear if we accept that statehood is being demanded for the genuine Indian Gorkhas settled in the Hills of Bengal.
Who are the Rajbanshis? According to Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, they are principally Koch in origin, belonging to the larger Bodo group (Hinduised or semi-Hinduised Bodos) and in them blood from Austric and Dravidian stocks intermingled. They were supposed to have shunned their original Tibeto-Burman speech and adopted the northern dialect of Bengali. British ethnographers were of the view that they were Koch who, having abandoned their aboriginal culture, adopted Hinduism during the reign of the first Koch King, Viswa Singha who became a Hindu. They said, they were from the Indo-Mongoloid stock though endowed with a fair amount of the Dravidian mixture as is evident in their physiognomy. The British kept clubbing them with the non-Aryan Koch in the censuses since 1891. However, in the wake of the Kshatriya movement led principally by the social reformer, Panchanan Barman, the Rajbanshi intelligentsia discarded such theories and claimed they had descended from the Aryan stock Poundra Kshatriya, a community that during the Puranic time fled their native land in fear of Parashuram, bent, as the legend goes, on annihilating the Kshatriyas, and settled in this part of the world. They separated their identity from the ruling dynasty that was Koch in its origin, resulting in the movement being banned in the erstwhile Cooch Behar State.
Prof Ananda Gopal Ghosh, a north Bengal researcher, said, the Kshatriya movement's argument cannot be rejected outright. The confusion grows as they, in terms of physical features, are nearer to the Indo-Mongoloid stock while their language is by no means of the Tibeto-Burman origin, suffused as it is with Sanskrit terms. However, there is another opinion, saying that Sanskrit played a role in developing the local languages of the Tibeto-Burman origin like Rajbanshi/ Kamta language following the advent of the Aryan culture in this region in the pre-Vedic era.
The process of acculturation began, continuing till the early Christian era and Magadhi was accepted by the local people as a richer language, according to this school.
Prof Ghosh opined that the present Rajbanshi community-if they are admitted to be of the Aryan Kshatriya stock- might have descended from an intense and long-drawn blood mixture with the Indo-Mongoloid people, who inhabited the land the community, persecuted by legendary Parashuram, got settled in later. However, he insisted that this is just a view based on the logic of things, asking for profound academic discourse to delve deeper.
The reality is that it is difficult to differentiate the Rajbanshi community from the Bengalis from mainland Bengal. The accomplished sections of the community prefer to call themselves Bengalis, batting for acculturation and assimilation and insisting that dwelling too much on differences from the mainstream Bengali culture and language would prove detrimental to the community's developmental aspirations.
Here the Gorkhaland and Kamtapur movements are poles apart. In the case of the former, the identity is clear and straight while it is murky, amorphous and convoluted in case of the latter, resulting in the movement failing to strike the right chord in the people in whose name the state is being demanded.
Source: The Statesman
By Romit Bagchi
The writer is on the staff of The Statesman
 |
| Gorkhaland & Kamtapur movements |
On the plane of culture, both the movements signify revolts against the Kolkata-centric socio-cultural hegemony of the mainland state over its peripheries-demanding to be unshackled from the cramping fetters of such bondage.
 |
| Gorkhaland movement |
However, freed from the trappings of cultural assertions, this means craving of the elitist sections of their respective societies for their dues-political/cultural/economic empowerment-in the changing trajectory when the 'centre' keeps losing its former glow with the moral force being squeezed out of it.
However, the two movements are different when it comes to identity. While the Gorkhaland movement is simple in its texture of identity the Kamtapur movement keeps encountering immense complexities on the identity of the people the separation is meant for. And herein is hidden the element of insecurity that keeps haunting the movement ~ an element that makes it different from the Gorkhaland movement. It must be mentioned here though that there are controversies over the identity of genuine Indian Gorkhas as differentiated from the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty beneficiaries. But things become clear if we accept that statehood is being demanded for the genuine Indian Gorkhas settled in the Hills of Bengal.
Who are the Rajbanshis? According to Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, they are principally Koch in origin, belonging to the larger Bodo group (Hinduised or semi-Hinduised Bodos) and in them blood from Austric and Dravidian stocks intermingled. They were supposed to have shunned their original Tibeto-Burman speech and adopted the northern dialect of Bengali. British ethnographers were of the view that they were Koch who, having abandoned their aboriginal culture, adopted Hinduism during the reign of the first Koch King, Viswa Singha who became a Hindu. They said, they were from the Indo-Mongoloid stock though endowed with a fair amount of the Dravidian mixture as is evident in their physiognomy. The British kept clubbing them with the non-Aryan Koch in the censuses since 1891. However, in the wake of the Kshatriya movement led principally by the social reformer, Panchanan Barman, the Rajbanshi intelligentsia discarded such theories and claimed they had descended from the Aryan stock Poundra Kshatriya, a community that during the Puranic time fled their native land in fear of Parashuram, bent, as the legend goes, on annihilating the Kshatriyas, and settled in this part of the world. They separated their identity from the ruling dynasty that was Koch in its origin, resulting in the movement being banned in the erstwhile Cooch Behar State.
Prof Ananda Gopal Ghosh, a north Bengal researcher, said, the Kshatriya movement's argument cannot be rejected outright. The confusion grows as they, in terms of physical features, are nearer to the Indo-Mongoloid stock while their language is by no means of the Tibeto-Burman origin, suffused as it is with Sanskrit terms. However, there is another opinion, saying that Sanskrit played a role in developing the local languages of the Tibeto-Burman origin like Rajbanshi/ Kamta language following the advent of the Aryan culture in this region in the pre-Vedic era.
The process of acculturation began, continuing till the early Christian era and Magadhi was accepted by the local people as a richer language, according to this school.
Prof Ghosh opined that the present Rajbanshi community-if they are admitted to be of the Aryan Kshatriya stock- might have descended from an intense and long-drawn blood mixture with the Indo-Mongoloid people, who inhabited the land the community, persecuted by legendary Parashuram, got settled in later. However, he insisted that this is just a view based on the logic of things, asking for profound academic discourse to delve deeper.
The reality is that it is difficult to differentiate the Rajbanshi community from the Bengalis from mainland Bengal. The accomplished sections of the community prefer to call themselves Bengalis, batting for acculturation and assimilation and insisting that dwelling too much on differences from the mainstream Bengali culture and language would prove detrimental to the community's developmental aspirations.
Here the Gorkhaland and Kamtapur movements are poles apart. In the case of the former, the identity is clear and straight while it is murky, amorphous and convoluted in case of the latter, resulting in the movement failing to strike the right chord in the people in whose name the state is being demanded.
Source: The Statesman
By Romit Bagchi
The writer is on the staff of The Statesman
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