Assam 2009 - Posoowa

20th century Assam icons
Bhupen Hazarika,
Bhabendranath Saikia: A caste
point of view
years ago. I was not amused then. No
symbolic, ad-hoc, superfluous gesture
of revolt moves me. The elderly
Brahmin’s professed antipathy for caste
awareness in the Indian society was
apparently an articulated sign of
egalitarianism. He clearly expected
claps for this, but then there is also
India’s ‘best loved Englishman’ Mark
Tully who finds “…caste is obnoxious
to the egalitarian West, so it is obnoxious
to the Indian elite too.” (No Full Stops
in India, Mark Tully, Penguin).
The two most recognized Assamese
personalities in the second half of the
twentieth century are certainly Dr.
Bhupen Hazarika and Dr.
Bhabendranath Saikia, incidentally
from the same caste with identical
constitutional status in India and social
footing. I believe their success and
standing bear an epoch-making
significance, which ought not to be
diffused by some inflexible outlook.
The comments of an honorable man
belonging to the Brahmin community
motivate me to call for a caste
reappraisal of the two most famous
twentieth century sons of Assam,
Bhupen and Bhaben. This individual
calls himself progressive and castigates
Dr. Bhabendra Nath Saikia for robbing
Mr. Pradip Barua of the glory as the
mastermind of the premier Assamese
magazine Prantik. This individual
claims to be a relative of the Prantik
editor; I have known him since the
1970s, initially as one of my classmate’s
father and later as a respectable older
person with a lot of good advice for me
in many situations. It needs to be
mentioned here that Dr
Bhabendranath Saikia was the founder
chief editor of the Assamese fortnightly
Prantik launched in the 1980s with Mr.
Pradip Barua as the editor, printer and
publisher..
As for the honorable man and my
classmate’s father, there had hardly
been an occasion for me to doubt his
integrity. He is educated and polished,
well mannered and helpful besides being
a former journalist who contributed
editorials for the Assamese daily with
which I began my career. Though I
belong to a caste apart from his, there
was no hitch in our relationship right
from my school days until one doubtful
23
day when the retired
bureaucrat volunteered to
make me aware of his
broadmindedness by
revealing that he does not
wear the sacred thread
called lagun.
So, he boldly discarded a
prevalent Brahmin custom.
It is an ill-advised practice
in his views, and the seventy
year old former bureaucrat
earnestly added, “I don’t believe in
caste discrimination.” For years, I
remained a curious spectator of what
he wanted me to acknowledge as his
liberalism or modern outlook.
Years later this very liberal Brahmin
tried to convince me that the credit for
the most successful Assamese
magazine should go to his relative Mr.
Pradip Barua and not Dr. Bhabendra
Nath Saikia ‘who does not do anything.’
The honorable man’s charge of Dr.
Saikia ‘doing nothing for Prantik’
stunned me as I vividly remember giving
the manuscript of my only article to be
printed in Prantik to an ailing Dr. Saikia
who gracefully accepted, edited and
returned it to me with a note to the
Prantik editor Pradip Barua; I carried
the manuscript from Dr. Saikia’s
residence to the Editor who eventually
published it. Later I collected the
manuscript and still preserve it with Dr.
Saikia’s notes and correction marks. So
this is my first hand experience of Dr.
Saikia’s diligence and commitment for
the magazine of which he is the founder
editor, yet paradoxically there exists a
class of people to disparage him.
My mind went back to the old
honorable man’s avowal of liberalism
What is caste then Caste remains a
buzzword in Indian social interactions,
formal and informal, academic or
casual. For most Indians, it is a column
to be filled in application forms
submitted to the authority. Caste
invariably plays a role in employment
and educational opportunities. Caste
decides political outcome and it is an
undercurrent in all kinds of social
contacts, more openly in wedding
alliances.
The caste system outlasts centuries old
revolt against it in the forms Buddhism
or Vaishnavism, Ambedkar and Mandal
Commission and also this nameless
bureaucrat Brahmin discarding lagun.
I know caste remains strong and steady,
yet caste deliberations never cease to
entertain me. Here a few of caste
centric paragraphs from a few
outstanding books that leave me no
wiser but I can’t help reading them again
and again.
Caste from Encyclopedia Britannica:
Caste is a group of people having a
specific social rank, defined generally
by descent, marriage and occupation.
Each caste has its own customs that
restrict the occupations and dietary
habits of its members and their social
POSOOWA • June 2009