<<<how much does the statue of lachit at saraighat
>inspire people?>>>
Not at all ! And we should have no Busts, Statues, Xetus, Tombs, -all alien to our passing times.Everybody does his best in his time--and Go.
Nor does the effeminate picture-supposed to be Xonkordeo's- commissioned by some Hindu Guvnor at Kharghulie palace.Xonkor with that haloed face could not have swam across Brahmaputra in high-floodtime.
Nor the bust of supposed to be Lachit Bir installed at National Defence Academy Pune by the same Guvnor+equally blank- headed Profulla Mahanta
Kudos to Saurav-he is indeed Mr.-or Dr Logic , Dr analysis. I am proud for him.
mm
From: Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: SP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Himendra Thakur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: J Kalita <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, assam@assamnet.org
Subject: Re: [Assam] invasion and threat to the assamese
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 14:46:49 -0600
>Thanks Saurav for another immensely informative, educational and
>thoughtful piece. For a historically challenged person like myself,
>it was extremely illuminating.
>
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>At 2:49 PM -0500 1/28/06, SP wrote:
> >dear himendra-da,
> >
> >
> >Himendra Thakur said on AssamNet:
> >
> >
> >+ Dear Saurav,
> >+
> >+ I never mentioned that the attack in Saraighat was made by Muslims. Please
> >+ check it out carefully. Please also find out why you missed this very vital
> >+ point.
> >+
> >+ I was very definite to point out that the attack was made by Invaders . the
> >+ same invaders who attacked India in 1193 (& again in 1526.) These were
> >+ Islamic invaders from outside India. Nothing is "muddled up" in this
> >+ statement.
> >+
> >
> >though you assert you mentioned invaders and not muslims, the rest of
> >your post was fixated on muslims. you seem to be pointing at the muslims
> >not by name but by implication. and believe me, the implication is very
> >transparent.
> >
> >still, "invader" too has serious problems. the muslims came to be
> >called yavana, but the word was originally used for the greeks and
> >the scythians (origin: ionia). the rajputs and other militant groups
> >in northwest india are descendents of the scythians (sakas), and they
> >too were invaders at some point and were called yavanas.
> >
> >btw, "thakur" comes from the scythian subgroup thukarian!!
> >
> >atan burhagohain, in whose name you want to build a xako, was a descendent
> >of "invaders" who came in 1228. just as aurangzeb was a descendent of
> >"invaders" who came in 1526.
> >
> >
> >+ After the 1193 attack, the invaders, having the advantage of excellent
> >+ cavalry equipped with Arab horses, spread over the Indo-Gangetic
> >plains at a
> >+ very high speed. Defeating all local rulers, they arrived in Bihar by 1200
> >+ AD (about 1400 miles in 7 years, @ 200 miles per year) and, after beheading
> >+ the Buddhist scholars, they burnt down Nalanda University. They proceeded
> >+ further to the East. They occupied Bengal in 1205. They were stopped in
> >+ Assam. These are historical records.
> >
> >
> >invasions are common occurances in historical times and are legitimate
> >steps in new nation building. they do not negate legitimacy. the most
> >beautiful example is assam.
> >
> >
> >+ Under the early Islamic rule, a new custom, called Jawhar-Vrata,
> >got started
> >+ in the Indo-Gangetic plains: groups of Hindu women would jump
> >into a bonfire
> >+ to evade molestation. The historical record of Jawhar Vrata ( not
> >present in
> >+ pre-Islamic India) proves the degree of atrocity by the Islamic invaders.
> >+
> >
> >jauhar is a custom and ritual found exclusively in the desert regions of
> >rajasthan and not in the indo-gangetic plains. the most celebrated incident
> >involved the rajput queen padmini. but that tells only half the story.
> >in the 13th century a rajput army cornered by turks decided to
> >immolate all those who could not fight, women, children and the infirm,
> >ground to dust the diamonds in their possession, melt the gold and silver,
> >destroy all provisions and then go out to battle and die.
> >
> >as a military strategy, there is a term for this---scorched earth policy.
> >it worked wonders, especially in the desert, where invading armies
> >depended heavily on captured provisions and treasure to sustain themselves
> >in the short term and make profit in the long run. that this strategy
> >worked in the desert regions is no surprise, which further explains why
> >the custom did not become popular elsewhere.
> >
> >before you make it into a hindu-muslim issue, take into consideration
> >the facts that jauhar had a military origin, that it was geographically
> >localized mainly to the desert regions, that it was identified with just
> >one varna (kshatriya) and that too an ethnic subsection of it (rajputs)
> >and that women did not have a large say in it---some were forcibly
> >immolated and even killed by the sword.
> >
> >
> >+ What I wrote above are historical facts. I am now going make an assumption
> >+ that, under the early Islamic rule in Indo-Gangetic plains, if a Hindu
> >+ family had five brothers, two would convert to Islam to protect the
> >+ remaining three. That was how the Indian Muslims started. They
> >protected the
> >+ Hindus on one hand, and cooled down the ruthlessness of the Invaders on the
> >+ other hand.
> >+
> >+ The above assumption is based on the fact that, unlike Persia, land of
> >+ Zoroastrian population, which became completely Islamized, Hindus survived
> >+ in India, thanks to their Muslim brothers. Another historical fact is that,
> >+ in the later years, the Invaders softened to a great extent.
> >+
> >+ However, the Hindus could survive under Islamic Rule only by playing a
> >+ double standard: one opinion inside the house, and a very different opinion
> >+ outside. Another survival skill was the capacity to change the
> >meaning of a
> >+ spoken word: if a Hindu said something against the Sultan and was
> >challenged
> >+ by a Sultan's katwal, the Hindu must be able to change the meaning of what
> >+ he said, just to save his neck. Running for several centuries, these habits
> >+ have become second-nature of the people of the Indo-Gangetic plains, which
> >+ can be observed even today. Hindus were definitely living a life of
> >+ second-class citizen under Islamic rule. No wonder such a situation gave
> >+ rise to quislings and petains and pierre lavals who prospered by exploiting
> >+ their fellow countrymen.
> >
> >
> >that your view on medieval india is based on a hindu-muslim dichotomy
> >is best exemplified in the three paragraphs above. they are imaginary
> >and fantastic to say the least.
> >
> >
> >+ My great anxiety is the danger that Assamese people are facing due to the
> >+ huge number of Bangladeshi infiltrators. The anxiety is based on
> >+ geopolitical forces. My great fear is that the landmass of Assam
> >will become
> >+ like Kashmir or Chittagong Hill District. My great fear is that Assamese
> >+ people will become like Kashmiri refugees now living in the
> >streets of Delhi
> >+ or Lucknow, or Chakma refugees who are being driven out from
> >place to place.
> >
> >your characterization of the threat to the assamese people was the main
> >reason for this and the previous post. so here is my brief take on
> >it.
> >
> >the kashmir problem is more than the hindu-muslim problem that you
> >make it out to be. i don't want to recount well known history---sheikh
> >abdullah's stand on pakistan and national conference's rejection of
> >the muslim league's proposal. the latest problems stem from the
> >insurgency in the 80's, a relatively recent manifestation of a much
> >older problem.
> >
> >your assam-kashmir analogy is ridiculous and banks too much on
> >hindu-muslim dichotomy and scare tactics. in assam, the issue of
> >influx is a case of economic migration, not a question of nationalism.
> >or religion. you could drive it to a religious conflict, of course.
> >but for now, it is not yet a religious problem . the problem for
> >the assamese people come from a variety of other sources.
> >
> >foremost among them is the inability of the assamese to solve the
> >inter-ethnic conflicts in the region. historically, those who claimed
> >to speak for the assamese have neither convinced anyone that their
> >problems are problems for the ethnic groups too, nor have they
> >accepted the problems faced by ethnic groups as their own. even today,
> >as the ethnic conflicts are increasing, the assamese are largely silent
> >and seem to have no opinion. a friend of mine visited a bodo refugee
> >camp near bongaigaon recently. a bodo refugee camp!! the bodos are one
> >of the most ancient settlers in that land---one of the autochthones
> >if you will---and they are in refugee camps, surviving on government
> >handouts!! the karbis too are in refugee camps. and as they spend
> >time in refugee camps, the lands which they had occupied, or which
> >their children would have occupied, lie fallow for others to come
> >in and set up a vegetable patch. the failure of the assamese to
> >form alliances, and reduce conflict within ethnic groups is creating
> >problems for itself in general and is also influencing the influx in
> >an indirect way.
> >
> >the assamese are facing new challenges from the media. assamese and
> >other local languages have a minimal presence on tv. their presence on
> >computers and the internet is almost zilch. new technology provide new
> >challenges to cultures. assam is doing well in commercializing the
> >theater (bhramyomaan) but doing badly in film. there have been other
> >challenges in the past. just when urbanization had started, the assamese
> >succeeded in transforming a pastoral/agrarian festival (the bihu) into
> >an urban celebration. as a result, bihu is a festival celebrated today
> >not just by the upstream assamese, or some ethnic groups, but by others
> >as well. today, pithas and larus, the traditional snacks---so laboriously
> >made in the past by assamese women at night according to tradition---are
> >available in the marketplace. many people today, who did not traditionally
> >make pithas, now serve them at home during bihu. commercialization will
> >dilute "ownership" issues and let people share cultural artifacts---in
> >the face of opposition from the purists.
> >
> >so i would put down the bigger challenges to the assamese today as---the
> >ethnic conundrum, the hurdle of new media and commercialization of
> >cultural artifacts.
> >
> >to fixate on the muslim influx, otoh, is ridiculous. first it is a
> >distraction. from the beginning of the assam movement in 1979 till
> >today---a period of thirty years---the challenges have come not from the
> >influx, but from elsewhere. second, to take on a large population (assam
> >has the highest percent muslim population after kashmir) and be in perpetual
> >conflict with it is adding to the problem, not solving it. the influx itself
> >is a complex issue that needs to be tackled sensitively. to reduce
> >it to a rhetoric would be cynical at best.
> >
> >
> >+ To fight this battle, I was urging my countrymen to draw strength from
> >+ Saraighat and build a memorial to Atan Buragohain which will
> >inspire people.
> >+ That was the main purpose of the article that you are criticizing. It is
> >+ very sad that you did not even mention about the ATAN BURAGOHAIN SAKO : A
> >+ Bridge Across Three Centuries.
> >
> >
> >well, tell me---how much does the statue of lachit at saraighat
> >inspire people?
> >the image of lachit is now being used to gather hindu votes. is that what
> >you mean by inspire?
> >
> >saurav
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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> >assam@assamnet.org
> >http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
>
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