Paper Details
The Affiliation or Alienation to Assamese: The jeopardize identity of East Bengal Origin Assamese Muslim of Assam
Authors
Azizur Rahman
Abstract
The Assamese Muslim is an identity that affiliated to greater Assamese nationality. The Assamese nationalism had emerged during the colonial period primarily based on Brahmaputra Valley. On Historical and Cultural perspective the ethos of Assamese nationalism emerged in this valley that have embraced all the social, cultural and ethnic groups of the valley. During the colonial rule this nationalism has been consolidated and identified as Assamese in reference to the valley known as Assam. The Assamese language by and large working as the tiding thread in this regard. The British annexation and its inclusion to Bengal Province had altered the mediaeval period socio-political condition of Assam. Particularly, the inclusion to Bengal province and dominance of Bengali hegemony accordingly created a sense of losing identity among the elite Assam. At this critical point, the newly emerged Assamese middle class inspired by western education rejuvenated their resistance to protect and preserve the Assamese identity and Assamese language had working as the tiding thread in this regard. Thus a language based nationalism has been working here. Among others the Muslim whom origin lies with the Eastern part of Bengal known as East Bengal migrated to Brahmaputra valley despite lot of hurdles slinked themselves into this nationalism and identified themselves as Assamese. But unfortunately due to their Bengali origin as well as number of population have created a sense of fear of jeopardizing Assamese identity among the rest of Assamese. This has created a line of alienation towards them. This has been entangled with Hindu nationalism as well as illegal infiltration of Bangladeshi. In this context here an attempt has been made to evaluated the position of this Muslims in the context of Ethnic affinity with the rest of Assamese and determine their position in the grater Assamese identity.
Keywords
Assamese Muslim, East Bengal Origin Assamese Muslim, assimilation, migration, Assamese
Citation
The Affiliation or Alienation to Assamese: The jeopardize identity of East Bengal Origin Assamese Muslim of Assam. Azizur Rahman. 2015. IJIRCT, Volume 1, Issue 3. Pages 394-398. https://www.ijirct.org/viewPaper.php?paperId=1503022