The Tai Ahom National Council Memo Scheduling

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Since then the struggle of the Ahom Association was directed towards securing minority rights. “They (Ahom Association) opposed, rather strongly, the proposed scheme for tabulating the Ahom as ‘Hindu’, and demanded that the word ‘Ahom’ be retained in the Census Report of 1941” (Professor Girin Phukan, “Search for Ahom Identity in Assam: In Retrospect”, Proceedings of the 4 th International Conference on Tai Studies, Vol IV, May 1990, Kunming, China, p.377). Ahom Demand for Minority Status: On 2 nd July, 1941, Rai Bahadur Radha Kanta Handique, an Ahom elite in his inauguration speech of the Tenth Annual Conference of All Assam Ahom Association held at Sivasagar on 5 and 6 April, 1941, maintained “This conference will have to come to calm conclusion as to the nature and extent of safeguards that the Ahoms must claim in this forthcoming future Constitution of India. “The Conference will further have to decide upon the form of the legitimate struggle which may be necessitated to secure the acceptance of the demand of ‘separate electorate’ for the community” (The Assam Tribune, April 25, 1941). In the memorandum submitted by Rai Bahadur Radha Kanta Handique, the president of the Ahom Minority Rights Sub-Committee of the All Assam Ahom Association, it claimed ” The Ahoms as a community are educationally more backward than certain sections of the Schedule Caste and the Hill tribal population of the province. It must be mentioned here that this claim of the community for treatment as a minority is being made more as a matter of right than as a matter of favour …the community’s position must be estimated not only on its numerical strength but in respect to the political and historical importance of the Community” (Memorandum of the All Assam Ahom Association, Jorhat, July 2, 1941). Surendra Nath Buragohain, the Member of the Assam Legislative Assembly elected on Ahom platform (subsequently he became a Deputy Minister in the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet), moved a Private-Member Resolution on 20 th November, 1943 urging the inclusion of the Ahom among the recognized minorities in the new Constitution of India. It reads “This Assembly is of opinion that the Ahom community of this province be included among the recognized minorities for the future Indian Constitution and that the Government do move the
Government of India and His Majesty’s government for consideration and acceptance of the community as such a minority”. (The Ahom Question in the Assam Legislative Assembly, Jorhat, 1946). But the Assamese Caste Hindus in the Assembly did not give weight to his lone voice. Ahom Demand During Post-Constitution Period In 1968, the Ahom Tai Mongoliya Rajya Parishad in its comprehensive memorandum forcefully claimed that the Ahom of Upper Assam have their own culture, language and distinct tradition which need to be preserved and developed. It claimed that the Ahom have a strong desire to save their socio-cultural institutions from ‘political and cultural domination of outsiders’. The dominant economic characteristic of the Ahom villages is extreme poverty and the average income being barely sufficient to maintain the minimum level of subsistence and leaving little surplus for capital formation. The position is even worse at present as other privileged classes have improved themselves while the Ahom further deteriorated. Demand for Scheduled Tribe Status: Following this demand, for the last quarter of a century, other Ahom organizations have been demanding and urging the Government of India for their inclusion of the Ahom in the list of Scheduled Tribe (Plains). However, in spite of many pleas and exhortations of the Ahom organizations, and the recommendations of the Tribal Research Institute of Assam, and also the resolution passed unanimously by the Assam Legislative Assembly on 5 th August, 2004, there has still been some hesitation of the highest authority for recommending the Ahom case for the inclusion in the list of Scheduled Tribe (Plains). Under the circumstances, more details and recent information from various original and authoritative sources are supplemented here. Recent Studies on Ahom & Tai: It may humbly be pointed out that during the last half a century, there has been a vigorous study on the Ahom and other Tai peoples at both institutional and association levels. At the institutional level, a good number of scholars have been awarded Ph. D. degrees on subjects relating to the Ahom in the Departments of History, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science,
Page 1 and 2: Additional Information and Further
Page 3 and 4: The British followed a subtle polic
Page 5 and 6: abolition of the paik system, even
Page 7: In recognition to their claim, the
Page 11 and 12: Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal; Alexan
Page 13 and 14: further aggravated during the seven
Page 15 and 16: All these go to prove that the Ahom
Page 17 and 18: Hindu/Hinduized Castes or even Inte
Page 19 and 20: Professor Amalendu Guha thinks the
Page 21 and 22: “The venerable (Deodhais and Bail
Page 23 and 24: The burial mound is called moi-dam
Page 25 and 26: them for fishing as is found among
Page 27 and 28: R. Gurdon in Encyclopaedia of Relig
Page 29 and 30: writes P. R. Gurdon in Encyclopaedi
Page 31 and 32: There thus grew up Ahom ethnic sett
Page 33 and 34: The claim of the Ahom to be include
Page 35 and 36: There is another anomalous situatio
Page 37: Silchar University IIT (Guwahati) A

The Tai Ahom National Council Memo Scheduling

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