Table Of ContentShillon
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GAM
LD
w
Nirode K. Barooah
Gopinath Bardoloi,
The Assam Problem'
and
Nehru's Centre
PRIME MINISTER,
INDIA.
au v saA
Published by
BHABANI PRINT & PUBLICATIONS
Hatishila, Panikhaiti, Guwahati-781 026, Assam, India
Phone: +91 (0)361-2132315
Fax: +91 (0)361-2450797
First published in November, 2010
Dr. Nirode K. Barooah
Ensener Weg 28c
50999 Cologne, Germany
e.mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means
without the prior permission in writing by the author.
ISBN: 978-93-80390-53-6
Printed in India by
BHABANI PRINT & PUBLICATIONS
Hatishila, Panikhaiti, Guwahati-781 026, Assam
Phone: +91 (0)361-2132315
Fax: +91 (0)361-2450797
e.mail: [email protected]
PREFACE
I finished writing this book on Bardoloi in the latter halfof the
nineteen nineties, and except forafew minor alterations and additions
the typed manuscript has substantially remained unchanged. The
reason why I have not made any effort to look for a publisher so far
will be explained later. However, the subjects I have touched in this
book and the material used for the purpose are still largely untouched
and unknown. The little that is known is through my own articdes in
Assamese and English based on the contents of this book, that I had
published from time to time. No one else has cared to study Bardoloi
in such depth as the present author.
My interest in the study of Bardoloi developed in the 1960s
when I came across some extremely important documents relating
to his period. Ever since I have cherished a desire to write a
political biography of this great patriot of India and the best and
most relentless fighter for the cause of Assam. However, shortly
after I started my research for the purpose, I had to leave India for
Europe in early 1971, where I was soon involved in historical
researches in a completely different field. In the middle of the
1980s, when I was still in Europe, the Bardoloi family requested
me to edit three of Bardoloi's diaries to be published on the
occasion of his first birth centenary in 1990. I readily agreed which
x]
rekindled my interest in Bardoloi with a vengeance ding
eventually to the fulfilment of my dream and the aration ar
of this book.
publication
However, this work is not a full-length biography in
he
conventional sense, covering Bardoloi's life from birth to dearh
It is a detailed account of Bardoloi's mission in politics which w
was
to free Assam from her age-old problems of internal disunine
external insecurity, underdevelopment of its infrastructure
and
underuse of its resources. A keen observer of the political scene
an analytical, far-sighted and determined activist with an intimate
knowledge of every aspect of Assam of his time the topography
geography, people, history and culture - Bardoloi could at once
perceive any impending danger to his province from any source
and prepare in advance by every means possible to avert it. He
had an abiding passion tor the safety, security and prosperity of
his beloved Assam.
It is perhaps necessary to comment why a ful-length study
of Bardoloi's unique political mission has so far remained a
desideratum. It is not that the indigenous people of Assam have
forgotten Bardoloi altogether. However, he is primarily
remembered because of his ingenious devices to save Assams
inclusion in Pakistan as envisaged by the Cabinet Mission in 1946.
But it is almost unknown to this day (except what I have written
about him) that he had saved Assam and today's North East at
many other crucial moments before the grouping crisis of 1940.
Without his eternal vigilance and timely preventive action during
1938-45, Assam's inclusion in Pakistan would have been a
foregone conclusion
even before 1946.
Three developments in Assam, after Bardoloi's death, see
to have been responsible for the lack of any proper knowic
and understanding of Bardoloi's politics whole. Most or t
as a
Congress leaders of Assam who opposed Bardoloi during
45 either did not fully know about Bardoloi's
many va
services, as they were behind bars during that period, o ey
consciously maintained a conspiracy of silence to hide theu
xxi
inaptness and inaction. Moreover, the chief critic of Bardoloi during
this period, the APCC President, M. Tayyebulla, wrote a book in
Assamese twelve years after Bardoloi's death, full of spurious and
vindictive stories, with no other purpose, it seems, than to malign
Bardoloi and his actions during 1941-45. The book would have
surely been ignored by serious readers but for another development
in 1977. In that year, a serious work, with Marxist pretensions,
on Assam's history was published with reverberations of the
jingoism of the 'Settlers Association'. Since Bardoloi bashing seems
to be one of the main objects of the book, the author swallowed
some of Tayyebulla's calumnies hook, line and sinker. Similarly,
he used the biased anti-Assamese tirades of some Hindu Sylheti
politicians after the referendum of 1947 to denigrate Bardoloi.
As a result, the clan of so-called Marxist scholars and writers that
grew around this author accepted his book as their sacred and
unquestionable source of information for the Bardoloi period of
Assam's history. "They were completely hoodwinked by his
spurious, and, in some details, hallucinatory accounts. Bardoloi,
in their eyes, became only a flawed politician no better than the
narrow-minded, conservative, backward-looking caste Hindu
middle class Assamese chauvinists. Bardoloi is thus condemned
before he is studied from authentic, trustworthy and genuinely
credible sources - a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.
Things have come to such a pass in today's Assam that at
least two members of this clan who have systematically blackened
Bardoloi's reputation with fake stories are considered
as
chintanayaks or leading thinkers. The clan has succeeded in
banishing Bardoloi from the pedestal of public reverence
considerably, if not from public memory. Two of the three Bardoloi
diaries that I edited and submitted to the Publication Board of
the Government of Assam in 1988, did not appear until eleven
and twelve years later. Furthermore, the establishment of one of
Assam's oldest dailies refused
me access to some of the old issues
of the paper when they came to know that my purpose was to
write a book on Bardoloi. At a historical research institute
at
xxi
Guwahati, an officer dithered, and procrastinated, gave me
the
runaround, and, finally refused to release the documene
I had
selected for photocopies. When I approached a few eading
publishers of Assam to bring out in book form a series of
research articles on Bardoloi in Assamese which had already
appeared in a leading journal during the Bardoloi centenary ear
(1990), they showed no particular interest because, as they said,
the book would lack market value. After such bitter experience
and frustration, I felt intense sadness for Assam, and saw no purpose
in looking for a publisher.
All through the rescarch and writing of this book I was
constantly reminded of what Einstein said about Gandhi on the
Mahatma's 70th birthday: "The generations to come would hardly
believe that such a man of flesh and blood really walked on our
planet. When one considers the problems Bardoloi faced with
his own Congress colleagues of Assam in the pre-lndependence
period, the cavalier behaviour of the Central Congress bosses at
the dawn of Independence, and the bizarre happenings that have
taken place in Assam ever since the end of the chiefministership
of B. R. Medhi towards the end of 1957, one wonders how a man
ofB ardoloi's faith and determination could emerge from the same
milieu in Assam and largely achieve his set goals almost
singlehandedly. In my humble opinion, the tragedy of Assam is
two-fold: it not only did not produce another patriotic politician
of Bardoloi's vision and aptitude to continue his work of
reconciliation and reconstruction, but it also did not produce a
sufficient number of people to learn and appreciate the ideas anu
achievements of Bardoloi. It is my belief that ifBardoloi had been
studied in depth by the Assamese, and his ideas appreciated a
implemented, many of their present-day problems could have
largely been avoided.
l am grateful to many people on a number of counts, and am
sad that many of them are not alive today. The late Shrima
Surabala Bardoloi, the late Bijoy Chandra Bhagawati, the late
Nikhil Chakravarty,
the late Shrimati Amalprabha Das, the lat
xxii
Shrimati Puspalata Das, the late Gaurisankar Bhattacharya, the
late Rabin Kakoti, the late Harendranath Barua, the late Nibaran
Bora, the late Lakshyadhar Chaudhury, the late Shrimati
Induprabha Baruah, the late Satish Chandra Kakoti and the late
Bhudhar Baruah gave freely of their time to discuss with me some
of the crucial points of the Bardoloi era. Birendranath Bardoloi
and the late Shrimati Lily Mazindar Barua enabled me to go
through some ot the private papers of Gopinath Bardoloi and
Lily, in particular, ungrudgingly took the trouble of gathering
some other relevant information for me. At the start of my
collecting archival material in Assam in 1988, Dhirendranath
Chakravarty and Abdul Hai Choudhury were extremely helpful.
Prad1p Baruah and the late Bhabendranath Saikia were among
the very few people in Assam's intellectual world at the time of
the Bardoloi centenary year to realise the overwhelming
significance of Gopinath Bardoloi for Assam and the Assamese,
and enthusiastically published my investigative series on Bardoloi
in Prantik in 1990 which rekindled some awareness about Bardoloi
in a state where reliance on interpretation from a single book was
the prime preoccupation of most writers on the history of Assam.
All through these years, my nephew, Ranjan Kr. Bora, has been
sending me from Assam books, paper clippings and other
information relevant to my research without which the progress
of the book would have been much delayed.
I must mention two other persons very exclusively for their
immense help in bringing this work to fruition. Elisabeth, my
wife, inspired me all through to relentlessly pursue this project
although, to all intents and purposes, it appeared as though it
would end up as no more than one of my favourite hobby horses.
While typing some of my chapters, she began to admire the
personality and the wisdom of Bardoloi, and painstakingly typed
the whole work from my handwritten manuscript with utmost
out
love and care. Since the manuscript has long remained
unpublished, I have made some additions and alterations in the
chapters from time to time which she has expertly integrated into
xiv
ooff montage. Her
whole by a virtual process mons.
composite
the new language e aanndd ssttyyllee wweerree aallssoo rm ost valuable
on
various suggestions while reading the manue
Shah Shujatullah, ript
fv old friend, which
raised innumerable questions com lled
at my request, and alter some passade
rethink on many points to
me to I have no doubt thar the
his critical comments.
accommodate
resulting from the scrutiny of these two people havee
revision
enhanced the value of the work. However, It goes without sayine
factual or
responsible for any shortcomings,
that I alone am
of this work.
otherwise,
Last but not least, I should like to thank Marco Siebertz for
intricacy of Internet in the final
guiding me through many an
of the book besides designing the jacket, and to Dhiren
sBtaegzeb oruah for taking sincere interest in the early publication of
the book.
Departing from my usual practice of not mentioning anything
about the publishers in preface, I feel the urge, this time, to offer
special thanks to Bidhan Dev, Prince Choudhury, Apu Dutta
my
and Himangshu Sarma for their abiding interest and co-operation
in this work.
N. K. B.
Cologne, Germany
17 May 2010
INTRODUCTION
(1)
Gopinath Bardoloi was born on 6 June 1890 at Raha, then a
small village in the Nagaon district with a police station, some
85 kilometers away from Guwahati, the third child ofa government
medical officer. The ancestral home of the family was at Guwahati
where Gopinath later had his early schooling and the first two
years of college studies. He lost his mother at the age of 12. This
might have been the reason why he became very thoughtful and
introspective in his demeanour. However, he did not altogether
miss the motherly care as he was brought up lovingly by his
widowed elder sister who, to0, lived with her father. From his
very childhood, he was not only good at his studies but also showed
a keen interest in classical and modern music, arts and sports. In
1909, he left for Kolkata and obtained his B. A. (Hons.) degree
from Calcutta University in 1911. After taking M. A. (History)
and B. L. (Law) degrees from the same University in 1914 and
1915, respectively, he went back to Guwahati where he became
headmaster of the local Sonaram High School, and developed a
lifelong interest in education. In 1917, he started his legal
THE ASSAM PROBLEM AND NEHRU'S
BARDOLO1,
2
practice at Guwahati. At the beginning of his professional career
lawyer, Bardoloi came under the influence of his early mene
as a barrister, hunter
Tarun Ram Phookan (1877-1939), a writer
and politician, who played a signiticant role in the early davs of
the Congress Movement in Assam, particularly during the Non.
Cooperation Movement.
Along with T. R. Phookan, Gopinath Bardoloi beganh
political life as one of the first batch of Congress leaders in Assam
in the autumn of 1920, i.e. betore the provincial Congress
organization was established there in June 1921. Guwahati in
the Kamrup district was the premier town of Assam then, as today,
and was also the chief centre of Congress activities of the province.
Apart from Phookan and Nabin Chandra Bardoloi (1875-1936),
the rwo most illustrous public personalities and Congress leaders
of Assam, many other Congress personalities such as Gopinath
Bardoloi, Hari Krishna Das, Gauri Kanta Talukdar, Kamakhya
Ram Barua, Rohini Kumar Chaudhury, Bisnu Ram Medhi,
Ambikagiri Ray Chaudhury, Mohammed Tayyebulla, Jogendra
Nath Barua, Nidhi Ram Das also came from that town. They all
joined the Congress movement from Guwahati in 1920. Gopinath
Bardoloi, being a special confidant of Phookan, was more
influenced than the others by the political thoughts and motives
of Phookan and elder Bardoloi.
There is no gainsaying that the Assamese Congress leaders
enthusiasm for the Congress movement sprang from self-interest.
In 1874, Assam had been delinked from Bengal and was made a
separate administrative unit under a chief commissioner. Howeve
ylhet, an enormously populous but deficit district of Benga
still remained within it. The Assamese, however, pined tor a sc
homogeneous Assam without Sylhet as in the days ot the
The
rule, to safeguard their language, culture and way of life.
the
idea of linguistic provinces, which had been in the air since
special Kolkata session of the Congress in September 1920, made
the Assamese leaders hopeful about the possible detacn nt
the
Sylhet from Assam, and they were now more attractcu
