[Assam] planter raj to swaraj
the book was actually first published around 1977. sukanya sarmah fails to mention that and the possible enhancements over the 1977 edition (if there are any). x Ram Sarangapani wrote: A new history just out. The book traces out the history of Assam from 1846-1947 and talks about tea plantations, freedom struggle, and electoral politics. Sukanya Sharma critiques the book by Amalendu Guha and writes His work has given Assam a world-class history book, based on solid research --Ram __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ assam mailing list assam@assamnet.org http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
[Assam] Planter Raj to Swaraj - Book Review The Hindu
A new history just out.The book traces out the history of Assam from 1846-1947 and talks about tea plantations, freedom struggle, and electoral politics. Sukanya Sharma critiques the book by Amalendu Guha and writes His work has given Assam a world-class history book, based on solid research --Ram __ Unique struggle SUKANYA SHARMA This examination of the freedom struggle in Assam is an intense work based on solid research. WE hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are equal... , wrote the author of the Declaration of Independence of America in 1776. This was a revolutionary concept. Until then a civilised society was believed to be composed of an absolute monarch, a society divided on the basis of class and an established Church. The American War of Independence and the French Revolution are seen as victories of the people. The changes that these brought to lives and cultures form the chapters of any book on them. Similar wars of independence fought in the 18th and 19th centuries against the colonial rule of Britain, France, Portugal and other European powers are often written in the format of glorifying histories. Their histories are often of the freedom fighters who died for the cause, or who lived to become rulers of their own people. But the voice of the farmer who resisted the payment of tax imposed on the land of his forefathers, the voice of the aboriginal inhabitant, and the voice of the immigrant, have been chosen rarely as a topic of discussion by history writers. This is one aspect that makes Amalendu Guha's book unique. It is a people's history. Data on the annual consumption of opium per 10,000 people (seers), provincial excise statistics (920-24), and data on land revenue arrears have given the voices of forgotten, unheard strugglers the place they deserve. Guha's book records the history of a part of India otherwise marginalised by historians of the freedom movement. The story of the freedom struggle in Assam is the story of the struggles against the acquisition of land for growing tea by European planters, the limits set on the rights of citizens to move freely in the name of protecting the tea gardens, the imposition of higher taxes on the inhabitants to build infrastructure to support the tea gardens and so on. Thus, the phrase Planter Raj used in the title of the book is a telling _expression_ for defining the historical situation. The ethnic card played in the current regional politics in Assam is a colonial legacy: Imperialism encouraged ethnicity to play a decisive role and thus hinder the growth of nationalism (page 275). Facts and figures retrieved from all possible sources are meticulously woven by Guha to bring out logical truths. He has laid bare open ulcers: Assamese society is still suffering from the pain of these ulcers Assam's miseries followed from a system of colonialism (page 69). This book is a must for policy-makers, bureaucrats and politicians who are responsible for Assam. For research scholars this book is a challenge and for students of socio-economic history of Assam it is a mine of information. Peasants and Slaves Guha writes about the socio-economic condition of a crucial period in the history of Assam. In 1826, Ahom rule had just come to an end after a tumultuous period of political unrest. Continuous Burmese invasions in the 18th and early 19th century had ravaged the economy of the region. The British arrived and started imposing taxes not only on land but also on produce from the land. The people protested. Guha defines these protests as peasant struggles. This is, in my view, a very ideological definition for a group of people who can be called cultivators or farmers. The dictionary definition of peasant is a poor farmer owning or renting a small piece of land that he or she cultivates. In the first chapter, `Peasant Struggle of a New Type', Guha describes the 1862-63 revolt of the Jaintias and the Khasis against house tax, stamp duty, licence tax and so on. These taxes affected not only cultivators but all residents of the area. However, people of this area were never solely dependent on their agricultural holdings. Even today only a part of their needs are fulfilled by produce from their agricultural lands. Most of their requirements of food, raw materials for constructing houses and for weaving clothes and so on are acquired from the forest. They are foragers as much as they are farmers. They are a self-sufficient group. The same may be said of the use of words such as slaves, slavery and chattel slaves. D.D. Kosambi in his book The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India states: It is impossible to find slavery in the classical European sense in India at any period (page 23). This is true of Assam also. First of all, zamindars in the true sense were present only in Goalpara district. In lower Assam there were rich landowners but in upper Assam the availability of surplus land did not allow the growth
Re: [Assam] Planter Raj to Swaraj - Book Review The Hindu
Even in the equal America of 1776 (as per the book's quote) voting rights for women and non-white males were not there. Blacks were still slaves and considered only two-thirds of a white man by Thomas Jefferson --one of the signatories of US consitution/Declaration of Independence and later US president truthis a journey?Umesh Sharma5121 Lackawanna STCollege Park, MD 20740 USACurrent temp. address: 5649 Yalta Place , Vancouver, Canada1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]Canada # (607) 221-9433Ed.M. - International Education PolicyHarvard Graduate School of Education,Harvard University,Class of 2005weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/ - Original Message From: Ram Sarangapani [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: ASSAMNET assam@assamnet.orgSent: Tuesday, 26 September, 2006 4:10:25 PMSubject: [Assam] Planter Raj to Swaraj - Book Review The Hindu A new history just out.The book traces out the history of Assam from 1846-1947 and talks about tea plantations, freedom struggle, and electoral politics. Sukanya Sharma critiques the book by Amalendu Guha and writes "His work has given Assam a world-class history book, based on solid research" --Ram __ Unique struggle SUKANYA SHARMA This examination of the freedom struggle in Assam is an intense work based on solid research. WE hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are equal... ," wrote the author of the Declaration of Independence of America in 1776. This was a revolutionary concept. Until then a civilised society was believed to be composed of an absolute monarch, a society divided on the basis of class and an established Church. The American War of Independence and the French Revolution are seen as victories of the people. The changes that these brought to lives and cultures form the chapters of any book on them. Similar wars of independence fought in the 18th and 19th centuries against the colonial rule of Britain, France, Portugal and other European powers are often written in the format of glorifying histories. Their histories are often of the freedom fighters who died for the cause, or who lived to become rulers of their own people. But the voice of the farmer who resisted the payment of tax imposed on the land of his forefathers, the voice of the aboriginal inhabitant, and the voice of the immigrant, have been chosen rarely as a topic of discussion by history writers. This is one aspect that makes Amalendu Guha's book unique. It is a people's history. Data on the annual consumption of opium per 10,000 people (seers), provincial excise statistics (920-24), and data on land revenue arrears have given the voices of forgotten, unheard strugglers the place they deserve. Guha's book records the history of a part of India otherwise marginalised by historians of the freedom movement. The story of the freedom struggle in Assam is the story of the struggles against the acquisition of land for growing tea by European planters, the limits set on the rights of citizens to move freely in the name of protecting the tea gardens, the imposition of higher taxes on the inhabitants to build infrastructure to support the tea gardens and so on. Thus, the phrase "Planter Raj" used in the title of the book is a telling _expression_ for defining the historical situation. The ethnic card played in the current regional politics in Assam is a colonial legacy: "Imperialism encouraged ethnicity to play a decisive role and thus hinder the growth of nationalism" (page 275). Facts and figures retrieved from all possible sources are meticulously woven by Guha to bring out logical truths. He has laid bare open ulcers: "Assamese society is still suffering from the pain of these ulcers Assam's miseries followed from a system of colonialism" (page 69). This book is a must for policy-makers, bureaucrats and politicians who are responsible for Assam. For research scholars this book is a challenge and for students of socio-economic history of Assam it is a mine of information. Peasants and Slaves Guha writes about the socio-economic condition of a crucial period in the history of Assam. In 1826, Ahom rule had just come to an end after a tumultuous period of political unrest. Continuous Burmese invasions in the 18th and early 19th century had ravaged the economy of the region. The British arrived and started imposing taxes not only on land but also on produce from the land. The people protested. Guha defines these protests as "peasant struggles". This is, in my view, a very ideological definition for a group of people who can be called cultivators or farmers. The dictionary definition of peasant is a poor farmer owning or renting a small piece of land that he or she cultivates. In the first chapter, `Peasant Struggle of a New Type', Guha describes the 1862-63 revolt of the Jaintias and the Khasis against house tax, stamp duty, licence tax and so on. These taxes affected not only cultivators but all residen
