I’ve come to Assam for the wedding of Monali and Dan. Although they both live ultra modern lives in London now not a single Hindu tradition was neglected. These included the ritual washing of Dan’s feet with bananas and curd by Monali’s family and, of course, the attendance of over 500 guests who the poor couple had to greet individually over 4 hours!Arriving into Assam could not be more of a contrast from hectic Delhi. The capital city, Guwahati, is tiny in Indian terms with less than a million people. Only a short run with my friend Rahul from the plush resort where we were staying took us through gorgeous green rice paddies enclosed by bamboo and palm groves with an idyllic mountain backdrop. In upper Assam, north of Guwahati, there are endless, beautifully manicured tea plantations which produce a sixth of the world’s tea (check your tea bag packet now – it’s likely to originate here!) and dotted around the state are several national parks which protect a phenomenal range of wildlife from tigers to Assam’s unique one-horned rhino. The people who look more Tibetan or Nepali are said to be the friendliest in India. So with all this where’s the rush of tourists?
Some Assamese tribal groups are fabled as head-hunting warriors but that’s not the problem today. Since independence, many ethnic-lingustic groups have jostled – often violently –
to assert themselves in the face of immigration, governmental neglect and heavy-handed defence policy. Everyday The Assamese Tribune is filled with stories of kidnappings and violent clashes between terrorist groups and patrol police. The paper reported that there were ‘only’ 1297 incidents in which 264 civilians and 42 members of the security forces were killed in 2009. Maybe a ‘significant improvement’ but still seems quite large to me.Pratham’s been present in Assam since 2006 and now works in 19 of the 23 districts. The four remaining districts are both inaccessible and the most dangerous as they border with fractious Nagaland (another Indian North Eastern province with similar ideas of independence) and Myanmar. The Indian and Burmese governments have been professing for years to work together to combat militant groups but have so far failed to turn talks into action. Pratham runs 3 main programmes here: the summer camp which accommodated over 500,000 children over a 4 week interactive learning programme last year; the reading enhancement project active in 82 out of 145 blocs for over 200,000 children; and independent Pratham learning centres, PLCs which run both R2L and L2R programmes for over 40,000 pupils.
With the wedding party I had spent a weekend at Kaziranga National Park where we took a safari riding on the back of elephants with the hope of seeing one of the park’s roaming tigers. Though as it turned
out looks like we would have been better staying in Guwahati – on arrival back in the capital we heard that day a tiger had escaped from the city’s zoo and was on the prowl! Luckily the guests escaped before we had any feline encounters and John, my jolly Irish friend, and I met Surjya the DRC leader in Assam. With a mouth full of blood red paan (powdered tobacco) he explained to us about the spider web ofinterconnected issue in the state. One concern arises from the proliferation of tribal groups here means linguistical problems in some areas. For instance increasing ethnic consciousness led the Bodo people to resent the prevalence of Assamese over their native Bodo language. Consequently there was a major Bodo insurgency that was only settled in 2004-5 with the creation of a partially self-governing ‘Bodoland’ in Northwestern Assam. The school syllabus is still in Assamese however which is distinctly different from the Bodo prounanciation. Pratham therefore works to ensure these children have special attention to ensure they do not fall behind.
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www.pratham.org
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