Re: [asom] Lost souls of Assam

[hthakur]

Dear Subhash, 



Thanks for this eye-opener article. 



What happened during/after the Burmese invasion in 1820-1826, may happen again 
if the Infiltrators from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) be victorious in their 
civilian invasion. 



A massive campaign to rehabilitate some of the long lost Assamese brothers back 
in Assam today like you have suggested may awaken the Assamese to the looming 
danger of the Damocles Sword hanging over us --- extinction like the Kashmiri 
Hindus. 



With love to all, 

Himendra 



  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "subhash medhi" <medhi_2...@yahoo.com> 
To: assamonline@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 12:35:01 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [asom] Lost souls of Assam 









Dear friends, 
                  A thought has been lingering in my mind for quite some time 
and i want to discuss it with you. During the Maan invasion of Assam many 
Assamese people fled from the Brahmaputra Valley and settled down elsewhere. 
There are some Assamese villages in Barak Valley too. The people of those 
villages are the descendants of those Assamese people who fled during the Maan 
raids. One such village is near Silchar town itself, in a place called Tarapur. 
Its name is Assamese Gram. The people of that village have Assamese surnames 
like Deka, Barua, Saikia, Kalita etc. I stayed in Silchar for four years and my 
maternal grandfather had told me that before returning back from Silchar i 
should at least meet those people once. I tried going to the place once but 
dusk had set in and i had to return without being able to meet those people. My 
maternal grandfather, when he was an MLA in the 60's , had visited that village 
and had got a chance to conversate with those people. He had told me once, 
before he left for his heavenly abode, that the people of that village, spoke 
Assamese with a Bengali accent. I have heard that there are some Assamese 
villages in Karimganj district too. 
Once i was eating at a stall outside my institute, i met an Assamese person 
from Maligaon in Guwahati. We chatted for some time and our discussions went 
over to this topic, that is about those Assamese villages, which i have 
mentioned. He told me that there actually hundreds of such Assamese villages in 
Barak Valley. 

In some discussion forum, i found that there are some Assamese villages 
in Myanmar on the other side of the Patkai mountains. Those are the descendants 
of those Assamese people who were captured by the Burmese and taken away as 
prisoners. As far as i know, there were some 30000 people who were taken away 
as captives by the Burmese raiders. That was almost 200 years back. Now, that 
population must have swelled upto a few lakhs. 

That is about the Assamese who either fled away or were captured and taken 
away during the Maan invasion. But what if there are Assamese villages whose 
ancestors migrated even earlier. I read in wikipedia that there are some 
Assamese villages in Bhutan too and also in Chittagong hills of Bangladesh. 

What i want to propose through this mail is that, why doesn't some 
organization, say for example, Assam Sahitya Sabha, establish cultural links 
with these people ? Why doesn't Assam government reserve some seats in the 
medical/ engineering colleges of Assam for the wards of these people, instead 
of reserving seats for the people of the Char areas whose ethnicity is very 
well known to the people of Assam ? Why not have some documentary serial on the 
lives of these people, on the hardships faced by them ? Why not we have an 
encyclopedia on the issues of such people ? It would be an interesting project 
anyway.Why don't we allow some of those Assamese people in Myanmar settle donw 
in Assam, instead of settlin down Bangladeshis ? 
And it would be very foolish on our part, if we forget them and let them fade 
away into oblivion. 

Regards, 
Subhash