Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar, The

world.

Introduction

Idon’t remember exactly when Indira Goswami had announced to the Assamese media that she was working on a novel about the forgotten, legendary Bodo heroine Thengphakhri, who had apparently worked as a Tehsildar during the British regime in Assam. Thengphakhri is a compelling character to write a novel on. At a time when educated Indians, social reformers and the British government were trying to fight misogynist practices such as sati, child marriage and the purdah-system and encourage widow-remarriage, in Assam there was a woman working with the British officers, shoulder to shoulder, as a tax collector who rode a horse, wore a hat and had knee-length black hair.

The image of Thengphakhri galloping across the plains of Bijni Kingdom in lower Assam to revenue circles with her long, shiny hair conditioned in elephant-apple’s juice is no doubt an intriguing image for a novelist. I could understand why Goswami was fascinated by the figure since childhood. She had heard tales about the Bodo heroine when she was a child. Listened to songs sung in praise of her. As a person who had always championed women’s causes, Thengphakhri was no doubt a figure of inspiration and awe for the young Indira Goswami. But the sad truth is that, until Goswami wrote about her, most people in Assam hadn’t even heard of this extraordinary woman.

Assam had heard of Mula Gabhoru—who fought Turbak’s army in April, 1532 commanding a battalion of male and female soldiers; of Phuleswaree Kunwori, a devadasi who sat on the throne of the Ahom Dynasty and ruled Assam from 1722 to 173 when devadasis were not respected, lived under deplorable conditions in most parts of India; of Kanaklata Barua: the fourteen year old martyr of the Quit India Movement, 1942. Thengphakhri remained only among the memories of some old people, in folk songs, in folk tales that were told and retold. Hence, Goswami’s choice to reconstruct the life of this heroine from historical as well as oral sources may be perceived as a significant intervention into the socio-political life of Assam. To explain this further, we have to briefly touch upon the trajectory of the Bodo movement in Assam and their subsequent demand for a separate homeland through violent means.

The Bodos, also known as kacharis are the largest group of plain tribes in Assam. For a long time, the Assamese middle class, both Hindu and Muslim, have denied them equal share and representation in various spheres of Assam. In the past, the All Assam Students Union—an influential pressure group—had demanded the ending of reservation for scheduled tribes in various government sectors. When the Bodos wanted to adopt the Roman script for their language, Assam’s erstwhile Chief Minister Sarat Chandra Singha had opposed it, advocating the usage of Assamese script instead. After the signing of the Assam Accord—a memorandum of understanding between the Government of India and the representatives of the Assam Agitation (1979–1985)—it brought out Assamese chauvinism in an ugly fashion as it had rested power mainly on the Assamese middle class, percolating insecurity among Bodo people. Since their larger ethnic aspirations were denied by the Assamese middle class who controlled most aspects of Assam’s political and social life, the Bodos felt alienated and started demanding a separate homeland.

The extremist outfit National Democratic Front of Bodoland was formed in 1986 with the aim to establish a sovereign Bodo nation. Later, in 1996, another armed outfit, Bodoland Liberation Tigers Force was formed to establish a separate state of Bodoland within the Indian nation. By 2009 when Thengphakhri was published, a peace accord in 2003 between the Indian Government and the BLT, placed the former insurgents in positions of power, allowing them to fight elections and form a government; the NDFB had been maintaining a ceasefire from 2005 (at present they are split into anti-talks and pro-talks NDFB). But the past two decades of violence, the xenophobia of the Bodos, their popular slogan ‘Divide Assam Fifty-Fifty’ had created an irrepairable chasm in the relationship of the Bodos and the Residents of Assam (I mention the term residents of Assam very consciously because the brunt of the Bodo movement has been faced also by Assamese settler communities such as Nepalis, Bengalis, Marwaris, Biharis, etc. who made Assam their home for several generations.)

The growth of Bodo-nationalism was not only a story of bloodshed. The Bodo Sahitya Sabha’s patronage had led to the growth of Bodo literature. Popular Assamese books were also translated into Bodo that played the role of promoting understanding among the communities and kept hope alive. Anjali Daimary, a well known professor and activist, who had translated Indira Goswami’s The Unfinished Autobiography into Bodo language, is the sister of Ranjan Daimary who is the founder of NDFB. That the publication of Thengphakhri was a significant cultural moment for the Bodos is attested by the fact that Indira Goswami was awarded the 7th Upendranath Brahma Soldier of Humanity Award by the Upendranath Brahma Trust. Brahma is one of the most revered Bodo leaders and the award is offered to any person who has made remarkable contributions to the society.

I remember, how proud Mamoni baideo was when her book was translated into Bodo. I know her well enough to say that a French, Italian, or German translation that many authors in India would kill for, wouldn’t have made her as happy. As a visionary, she could see what role literature could play to bring the two communities together. Indira Goswami was immensely popular also among the Bodo readers. The act of writing a novel on a forgotten Bodo heroine by one of India’s most respected writer has deep significance: Goswami was actually transplanting Bodo life and culture, their contribution to India’s Freedom Struggle into the centre of India’s literary and cultural imagination. I was in Guwahati to attend my favourite book festival in the entire world when Thengphakhri was released in 2009. A few days after the book was out, she had called me to her house, handed me a copy of the book and asked me if I would like to translate it. I was, of course, very honoured and readily agreed to do the translation because I, too, wanted to participate in this historic process of bringing the story of Thengphakhri to the centre of Assam and India’s literary discourse.

The novel covers only three years of Thengphakhri’s life from 1857 to 1859. When she appears in Chapter 1, Suez Canal, she is already a loyal British servant. The circumstances around her in the next few years would compel her to change her role to that of an anti-colonial rebel. Goswami’s book is interested not in the dramatic consequences of her choice, but in this complex, slow transformation.

It is an ambitious project not only because of the lack of proper historical evidence about Thengphakhri, but also because Goswami creates her as an introvert. She rarely speaks and we only see her in her actions. Unlike her previous novels, where the thoughts of her characters are very closely mapped, Goswami took up the challenging task of showing the complex emotions of her character only through her actions with very little dialogues to help her.

In 2007, Goswami had visited Bijni—where Thengphakhri had lived and worked until her death in 1879 or 1895 (disputed date). A symposium was organised by Bodo scholars to help Goswami at the Badosa Bhavan in the presence of Sub Divisional Officer Ujjwal Sharma, Member of Legislative Assembly Kamal Singh Narzary, and the President of the Bijni chapter of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha, Maneshwar Basumartary. During that visit she had met an old man named Batiram Bodo who claimed to have met Thengphakhri. He told Goswami that she used to come to his village Bogeedara, from her village Khamoriguri, with a British officer called Naken Sahib. Naken is an unfamiliar British name, but so are several names mentioned in the novel. I believe, though Goswami had moored her book on historical research, she had to rely mostly on memory and orality. A lot of names have been colloquialized in due course of time, and only remembered in their distorted versions. In a way, she had to create Thengphakhri nearly from scratch and it is amazing how vivid and real is the world she has etched meticulously, despite her obstacles.

The Ahoms ruled Assam for six hundred years until the British took over in 1826. This long period of Assam’s history is recorded with great detail by the Ahom scribes in the form of chronicles known as buranjis. The first buranji was written following the order of Ahom King Sukaphaa (1228–1268 AD) who had established the Ahom Kingdom (1228–826 AD) and that practice was followed by the later kings. Among the most well known of these are Asaam Buranji by Harakanta Barua, Asaam Buranji by Kashinath Tamuli Phukan, Assaamar Padya Buranji (written in verse) and many others such as Tripura Buranji by Ratna Kandali and Arjun Das, that recorded the history of neighbouring powerful kingdoms too. A special office called Likhakar Barua was created that commissioned scribes to write these chronicles on the basis of official documents such as state papers, judicial proceedings, diplomatic correspondence, etc. But these buranjis are silent about the powerful smaller kingdoms such as Bijni Kingdom, Dimoriya Kingdom, Tiwa Kingdom, Kamata Kingdom, Kachari Kingdom, of middle and lower Assam regions. Modern history writing in Assam has also maintained a silence about these smaller kingdoms with fascinating, dramatic histories and intriguing royal families. Indira Goswami laments this in her "Prostavana" to the novel. In a way, Goswami’s creative endeavour inaugurates not just the life of a forgotten heroine, but also rejuvenates interest in a hitherto under-represented region of Assam’s history.

Though the novel was published as a book in December 2009, most readers of Assamese literature in Assam and abroad had already read it as it was serialised in the prestigious literary