Tiny Sparrows in a Dark Forest: The Voices of Assam
Review of How to Tell a Story of an Insurgency edited by Aruni Kashyap (India: HarperCollins India, 2020)
by Prasanthi Ram
Fresh out of HarperCollins India, How to Tell a Story of an Insurgency (Insurgency) is a polyphonic collection of fifteen stories, written in English or translated from lingua franca Assamese and tribal language Bodo, about the insurgency that terrorized the state of Assam for years. Very often in such an "embattled region," the human is invariably lost, buried under layers of politics, agendas, and conflicts. What Insurgency effectively does is to flip that narrative and, instead, re-center the human. Indeed, these stories present us with a selection of characters from different pockets of society, whose narratives demonstrate what it truly means to live under "duress" in the "shadow of the gun" (Kashyap, Editor's Note).
It must first be acknowledged that the region is extremely difficult to grasp for any outsider to Assamese as well as Indian politics at large. What follows is an earnest attempt at a summary. As one of the last regions to be annexed by the British, the north-eastern state would have been left out of independent India, had it not been for the efforts of its first Chief Minister Gopinath Bordoloi. Sharing a border with then-East Pakistan and later, independent Bangladesh, meant that Assam faced a constant stream of illegal immigration, an issue that remains a grave source of tension today. In response to their lack of representation on the national level, the Assamese began rooting for an independent Assam, as seen in the rise of the student-led United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in 1979. When the Government of India banned the ULFA in 1990 for being a terrorist outfit, the organization swiftly turned militant, culminating in the insurgency.
On top of the already violent struggle against the Indian army, Assam concurrently saw the rise of inter-ethnic and -religious clashes within its diverse society, the creation of SULFAs or surrendered ULFA cadres who lay down arms in exchange for money, as well as a separatist militant struggle by the indigenous tribal Bodo community, which eventually established an autonomous region called Bodoland. Such complex vectors of violence also co-existed with significant poverty in the region, given that Assam was a site not only of conflict but of neglect too.
Insurgency grapples with these overlapping issues by bringing to the forefront realistic stories from the margins and presenting them without judgement. Although the writers are largely established authors, many of whom with strong editorial and academic backgrounds, the stories depict a wide range of characters, not only those of educational privilege. This strategy therefore produces a much larger and more inclusive narrative about the insurgency period that does not unanimously favor any one community over another.
Stories such as “Charred Paper” by Nitoo Das and “Crimsom” by Ratnottama Das Bikram answer the question about what led people to join the ULFA. Das focuses on the advent of student-led marches that formed the foundation of ULFA ideals whereas Bikram focuses on how the ULFA recruited people by using "radical and progressive" rhetoric. Das tells the story of a twenty-three-year-old college student Dani who brings her young niece Moina along to a march. When Dani’s family warns her that it is too unsafe, especially for a child, she simply retorts that she is "fighting for what is right," that is, for Assam's independence. In Bikram's story, villagers are enticed into attending meetings by the ULFA, which presents them with invigorating new ideas of change. Indeed Bikram writes, "The dream of building a new Assam was served to the villagers as one serves intoxicants to eager partakers."
In Jahnavi Barua's “The Vigil,” Manikuntala Bhattacharya's “Stone People” (the longest work in Insurgency), and Katindra Swargiary's “Hongla Pandit,” the plots are driven by families that are dysfunctional, even fractured, due to a stark difference of beliefs, hence allegiances. “The Vigil” sees a grief-stricken mother waiting for her two sons in turn: Bapukon the deputy superintendent and Moira the runaway militant; it is her liminal position that leads her to remind others to act with empathy (“They are mother’s sons too, remember that.”) In “Stone People” a sister is forced by her parents to embark on a wild goose chase for her missing brother Digbijoy, who has become a high-ranking militant. When an eager young militant asks her what she thinks of their fight, she resignedly responds: “What I may have to say is like the chirping of the tiny sparrow that gets lost in this dark forest. My opinion cannot change anything.” In “Hongla Pandit,” a father contends with the possibility that his son, whom he had raised to be an academic, has instead chosen to lead a militant Bodo organization, leaving him and his adult daughter vulnerable to intimidation by the army. Where these stories converge is in showing the debilitating impact that an individual’s revolutionary idealism can have on the emotional and physical well-being of their kin. As Bhattacharya writes, "Families of such revolutionaries had to suffer and sacrifice for the cause, even if it meant loss of life."
On the other side, through Anuradha Sharma Pujari's “Surrender” and Sanjib Pol Deka's “What Lies Over Here,” we learn how difficult it can be for SULFAs to successfully reintegrate back into society without being forced to pick up arms again. Deka even parallels the character Sorukon, a SULFA, to the ill-fated Abhimanyu from the Hindu epic Mahabharata: "Abhimanyu was trapped in a maze. He faced certain death. There was no escape from that." In both stories, SULFAs Dipok and Sorukon find themselves drawn back into violence not only because of their own unresolved trauma but because they, as valuable assets, are used by the police and the army to locate and get rid of former comrades. Furthermore, even if they try to steer away, another SULFA may get to them first; hence, they are inevitably "trapped in a maze" where they face a "certain death." To balance out this empathetic narrative about the SULFAs, the editor Kashyap includes Kaushik Barua's “Run to the Valley,” which depicts the use of violence by SULFAs to intimidate and extort from the common people. In the tale, a boy named Jango who tries to stand up against these SULFAs ends up dead. This story therefore points to the ambiguous position of SULFAs, who often straddle the identities of both victim and perpetrator.
Uddipana Goswami’s “Colours,” Arup Kumar Nath’s “Koli-Puran,” and Arupa Patangia Kalita’s “Our Very Own” problematize the us-versus-them mentality. In particular, they question the ease with which individuals/communities other those unlike them and are other-ed themselves during a protracted time of social turmoil. In their analysis, they contemplate how fear is often weaponized to serve an agenda. “Our Very Own,” in particular, exposes the arbitrariness of human perception and acceptance of others. The protagonist Jatin, upon returning from a two-year stint in Assam's capital Guwahati, wishes to pay a visit to an old friend David for Christmas. However, he is faced with opposition from both his family and his group of friends (that once included David), who suspect that the Bodo Christian boy may have an "evil design ... lurking in his mind." When his sister voices her disapproval, Jatin demands to know, "Is the family of David not our own people? Who helped us last year when Ma was languishing in the hospital?" Despite strong resistance, Jatin makes his journey and it ends on a moving note, highlighting the power of old ties in overcoming newly-formed ethnic prejudices.
In Jayanta Saikia's “Maryam,” a standout story that left me haunted for days, Assam's poorest of poor comes into focus. Maryam Bibi—a midwife from south Salmara, a predominantly Muslim border district—brings a pregnant woman at risk of a breach birth across the Brahmaputra river in order to seek medical help at the district headquarters. They are forced to go to such extreme lengths because there is no access to a dependable maternity healthcare system in their impoverished area. In the end, however, a storm hits, and the child is born–legs first–just as the boat they are on begins to sink. Saikia writes, "Was that an Assamese shore in the distance? Would the child find a land to be born in?" Indeed, the tragedy of this scene is deepened when we realize that mother and child have no true sense of belonging to any land; even at their seeming end, they remain stateless, drowning in a mighty river between India, Bangladesh, and China.
As with any collection, there were stories that I struggled to connect with, though that is more a reflection of my personal taste than a true appraisal of the individual works. Language was not the issue, since the stories mentioned earlier are a mix of works written originally in English as well as translated from Assamese and Bodo. In fact, my favorite stories from the collection were translated works ("Maryam," "Our Very Own," and "Stone People") because of the often unfamiliar yet novel use of English in order to reflect the sentiments of another language, culture, and people. The issue with “A Hen That Doesn't Know How To Hatch Its Own Eggs” and “A Political Tale,” both coherent and interesting in their own right, was their abstract approach to storytelling. Of course, such storytelling choices are not innately wrong; they, in fact, can make for unconventional, hence intriguing, narratives. However, there are no direct references to the insurgency and Assamese society in either story. Hence, with regard to the grand narrative of the insurgency, it does become difficult to fully unpack the stories' significance without deeper context or even personal experience. Since I was unable to attain either on my own, I ultimately found both tales slightly dissatisfying in adding to my understanding of the Assamese insurgency. If I am to make an analogy, it was like using a legend to read a map without being informed what the symbols stand for.
However, Hafiz Ahmed’s “Jiaur Master’s Memorandum” admittedly makes for a powerful finish to the collection. The story begins with a bereaved father who is seeking signatures for his memorandum in the hopes of getting justice for those killed in the 1983 Nellie Massacre, including his own two sons. According to the Times of India, following an anti-foreigner movement during election season that called for the “electoral rolls to be ‘purged’,” about 1,800 Bengali Muslims were killed by Assam Agitation leaders. None of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Ahmed’s story is a clear response to this historical event and it is through the voice of the protagonist, who makes up his mind over the course of the narrative to sign the memorandum, that Ahmed breaks the fourth wall and calls upon the reader to take real action: “Dear Reader, now I am going to start travelling in search of Jiaur Master… Would you like to join me in assisting Jiaur Master’s incomplete task?”
Indeed, even decades on, a destabilizing and difficult period such as the insurgency underlines the need for persistent reflection in order to progress towards crucial action. What Insurgency allows for within the parameters drawn by its numerous contributors is precisely that: a sincere and substantial meditation on the complex web of issues that have emerged from, been exacerbated by, and been left unresolved since.
While I cannot claim to understand Assam’s sociopolitical climate entirely and the collection is not intended as an exhaustive guide either, these fifteen writers have reminded me of how human life can be tragically circumscribed by grand yet arbitrary notions enforced by those that govern them. If siblings are forced to become foreigners, husbands to strangers, and friends to enemies, over land, borders and beliefs, what then is left of life? More than that, where do we unearth that resilience to keep holding on? I fear that, even after reading these stories, I do not have the answers. But at the very least, the chirping of these tiny sparrows is no longer lost in the dark forest, for anyone who reads this collection will be moved to stand alongside the people of Assam, bear witness to and, most of all, partake in their hidden sorrows.
Special thanks to Udipta for sharing your stories about Assam with me.
Prasanthi Ram is a PhD candidate for Creative Writing at Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. Her interests lie in South Asian literature, feminism(s), and popular culture. She is working on her debut collection of short stories that explores the Tamil Brahmin community in Singapore. Most recently, she co-founded and is the fiction editor of Mahogany Journal, an online literary journal dedicated to South Asian writers born or based in Singapore.