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  • How ancient megalithic jars connect Assam with Laos and Indonesia

    The discovery of a number of megalithic stone jars in Assam’s Dima Hasao district has brought to focus possible links between India’s Northeast and Southeast Asia, dating back to the second millennium BC.

    What is the news?

    • According to a study in Asian Archaeology, the jars are a “unique archaeological phenomenon”.
    • It calls for more research to understand the “likely cultural relationship” between Assam and Laos and Indonesia, the only two other sites where similar jars have been found.

    About the Megalithic Jars

    • The jars of Assam were first sighted in 1929 by British civil servants James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton.
    • They recorded their presence in six sites in Dima Hasao: Derebore (now Hojai Dobongling), Kobak, Kartong, Molongpa (now Melangpeuram), Ndunglo and Bolasan (now Nuchubunglo).
    • More such sites were later discovered in 2016 and 2020.
    • Researchers documented three distinct jar shapes (bulbous top with conical end; biconcial; cylindrical) on spurs, hill slopes and ridge lines.

    Their significance

    • While the jars are yet to be scientifically dated, the researchers said links could be drawn with the stone jars found in Laos and Indonesia.
    • There are typological and morphological similarities between the jars found at all three sites.
    • Dating done at the Laos site suggests that jars were positioned at the sites as early as the late second millennium BC.
    • The other takeaway is the link to mortuary practices with human skeletal remains found inside and buried around the jars.
    • In Indonesia, the function of the jars remains unconfirmed, although some scholars suggest a similar mortuary role.

    Back2Basics: Megalithic Burials in India

    • Megaliths were constructed either as burial sites or commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials.
    • The former are sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala).
    • The urn or the sarcophagus containing the mortal remains was usually made of terracotta.
    • Non-sepulchral megaliths include memorial sites such as menhirs. (The line separating the two is a bit blurry, since remains have been discovered underneath otherwise non-sepulchral sites, and vice versa.)
    • Taken together, these monuments lend these disparate peoples the common traits of what we know as megalithic culture, one which lasted from the Neolithic Stone Age to the early Historical Period (2500 BC to AD 200) across the world.
    • In India, archaeologists trace the majority of the megaliths to the Iron Age (1500 BC to 500 BC), though some sites precede the Iron Age, extending up to 2000 BC.

     

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  • Artform in news: Yakshagana

    Many students from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Rajasthan are enrolling for training of Yakshagana theatre.

    What is Yakshagana?

    • Yakshagana is a traditional theater, developed in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Shimoga and western parts of Chikmagalur districts, in the state of Karnataka and in Kasaragod district in Kerala.
    • It emerged in the Vijayanagara Empire and was performed by Jakkula Varu.
    • It combines dance, music, dialogue, costume, make-up, and stage techniques with a unique style and form.
    • Towards the south from Dakshina Kannada to Kasaragod of Tulu Nadu region, the form of Yakshagana is called as ‘Thenku thittu’ and towards north from Udupi up to Uttara Kannada it’s called as ‘Badaga Thittu‘.
    • It is sometimes simply called “Aata” or āṭa (meaning “the play”). Yakshagana is traditionally presented from dusk to dawn.
    • Its stories are drawn from Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata and other epics from both Hindu and Jain and other ancient Indic traditions.

     

    Try this question from CSP 2017:

    Q.With reference to Manipuri Sankirtana, consider the following statements:

    1. It is a song and dance performance.
    2. Cymbals are the only musical instruments used in the performance.
    3. It is performed to narrate the life and deeds of Lord Krishna.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1, 2 and 3.

    (b) 1 and 3 only

    (c) 2 and 3 only

    (d) 1 only

     

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  • Who was Guru Nabha Dass?

    Punjab government has announced gazetted holiday on the birth anniversary of Guru Nabha Dass, a 16th century saint, taking it out from list of restricted holidays.

    Who was Guru Nabha Dass?

    • Guru Nabha Dass was born on April 8, 1537 at village Bhadrachalam on the bank of Godavari river in Khammam district, which falls in the present day Telangana.
    • He belonged to Mahasha also known as doom or dumna community, which is one of the Schedule Caste communities.
    • Since childhood, orphaned Guru Nabha Dass, whose original name was Narayan Dass, had an inclination towards spirituality.
    • Two religious gurus — Agar Dass and Keel Dass — who were passing through his village took the orphan child to a temple at Ghalta Dham, which is now main pilgrimage of Nabhadassias, at Jaipur.
    • People from this community are also known as Nabhadassias. They are known for making baskets and grain storage containers with bamboo.

    His legacy

    • Guru Nabha Dass wrote ‘Bhagatmal’ in 1585.
    • It has the life history of around 200 saints. He died in 1643.

    What is his connection with Punjab?

    • Guru Nabha Dass used to visit village Pandori in Gurdaspur district where people of Doom community live.
    • Some gurus of the community also used to live there.

    What made government announce gazetted holiday now?

    • Political parties can’t manage to ignore the sentiments of such a large community.
    • The community had been requesting the government to declare April 8 as a gazetted holiday since long.

     

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  • Raja Ravi Varma and his Arts

    Raja Rai Varma’s Draupadi Vastraharan is expected to fetch between Rs 15 and Rs 20 crore at an auction.

    Who was Raja Ravi Varma?

    • Raja Ravi Varma was born in April 1848 in Kilimanoor, Kerala, to a family which was very close to the royals of Travancore.
    • Often referred to as the father of modern Indian art, he is widely known for his realistic portrayal of Indian gods and goddesses.
    • While he majorly painted for the royalty, he is also credited for taking art to the masses with his prints and oleographs.
    • At a young age, he would draw animals and everyday scenes on the walls in indigenous colours made from natural materials such as leaves, flowers and soil.
    • His uncle, Raja Raja Varma, noticed this and encouraged his talent.
    • Patronised by Ayilyam Thirunal, the then ruler of Travancore, he learnt watercolour painting from the royal painter Ramaswamy Naidu, and later trained in oil painting from Dutch artist Theodore Jensen.

    How he became an artist of the royals?

    • Varma became a much sought-after artist for the aristocrats and was commissioned several portraits in late 19th century.
    • Arguably, at one point, he became so popular that the Kilimanoor Palace in Kerala opened a post office due to the sheer number of painting requests that would come in for him.
    • He travelled across India extensively, for work and inspiration.

    Fame as a notable painter

    • Following a portrait of Maharaja Sayajirao of Baroda, he was commissioned 14 Puranic paintings for the Durbar Hall of the new Lakshmi Vilas Palace at Baroda.
    • Depicting Indian culture, Varma borrowed from episodes of Mahabharata and Ramayana for the same.
    • He also received patronage from numerous other rulers, including the Maharaja of Mysore and Maharaja of Udaipur.
    • As his popularity soared, the artist won an award for an exhibition of his paintings at Vienna in 1873.
    • He was also awarded three gold medals at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

    Nature of his artforms

    • Much of his celebrated art also borrows heavily from Indian mythology.
    • In fact, he is often credited with defining the images of Indian gods and goddesses through his relatable and more realistic portrayals often painted with humans as models.
    • The depictions include Lakshmi as the goddess of wealth, Saraswati as the goddess of knowledge and wisdom, and Lord Vishnu with his consorts, Maya and Lakshmi.

    How he took Indian art to the masses?

    • Raja Ravi Varma aspired to take his art to the masses and the intent led him to open a Lithographic Press in Bombay in 1894.
    • The idea, reportedly, came from Sir T Madhava Rao, former Dewan of Travancore and later Baroda, in a letter where he pointed out to Varma that since it was impossible for him to meet the large demand for his work, it would be ideal for him to send some of his select works to Europe and have them produced as oleographs.
    • Varma, instead, chose to establish a printing press of his own.
    • The first picture printed at Varma’s press was reportedly The Birth of Shakuntala, followed by numerous mythological figures and saints such as Adi Shankaracharya.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. There are only two known examples of cave paintings of the Gupta period in ancient India. One of these is paintings of Ajanta caves. Where is the other surviving example of Gupta paintings?

     

    (a) Bagh caves

    (b) Ellora caves

    (c) Lomas Rishi cave

    (d) Nasik caves

     

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  • [pib] Festivals in news: Gudi Padwa

    The President of India has sent his greetings to fellow citizens on the eve of Chaitra Sukladi, Ugadi, Gudi Padwa, Cheti Chand, Navreh and Sajibu Cheiraoba.

    Gudi Padwa

    • Gudi Padwa is a spring-time festival that marks the traditional New Year for Marathi and Konkani Hindus, but is also celebrated by other Hindus as well.
    • It is celebrated in and around Maharashtra, Goa, and the union territory of Damaon on the first day of the Chaitra month, to mark the beginning of the New Year according to the luni-solar method of the Hindu calendar.
    • Padava or paadvo comes from the Sanskrit word pratipada, which is the first day of a lunar fortnight.
    • The spring festival is observed with colourful floor decorations called rangoli, a special Gudhi dvaja (flag garlanded with flowers, mango and neem leaves, topped with upturned silver or copper vessels), street processions, dancing& festive foods.

    Significance

    • Gudhi Padva signifies the arrival of spring and to the reaping of Rabi crops.
    • The festival is linked to the mythical day on which Hindu god Brahma created time and universe.
    • To some, it commemorates the coronation of Rama in Ayodhya after his victory over evil Ravana, or alternatively the start of Shalivahan calendar after he defeated the Huns invasion in the 1st century.

    State-wide celebrations

    • Bihu among the Assamese of Assam.
    • Cheti Chand among the Sindhi people
    • Navreh among the Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu and Kashmir.
    • Pahela Baishakh among the Bengalis in West Bengal and Bangladesh.
    • Puthandu among the Tamils in Tamil Nadu.
    • Samvatsar Padvo among Hindu Konkanis of Goa and Konkani diaspora in Kerala
    • Vaisakhi or Baisakhi among the Punjabis in Punjab.
    • Vishu or among the Malayalis in Kerala.
    • Ugadi among the south-Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
    • Sajibu Cheiraoba in Manipur

     

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  • The phenomenon of Coral Bleaching

    The management authority of the world’s largest coral reef system, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, confirmed on March 25 that the reef is experiencing a mass coral bleaching event.

    What are Coral Reefs?

    • Corals are marine invertebrates or animals not possessing a spine.
    • Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grows when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.
    • Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system stretching across 2,300 km.
    • It hosts 400 different types of coral, gives shelter to 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
    • Corals are of two types — hard coral and soft coral:
    1. Hard corals, also called hermatypic or ‘reef building’ corals extract calcium carbonate (also found in limestone) from the seawater to build hard, white coral exoskeletons.
    2. Soft coral polyps, however, borrow their appearance from plants, attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors. Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years and these growing multiplying structures gradually form coral reefs. They are the largest living structures on the planet.

    How do the feed themselves?

    • Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.
    • The algae provides the coral with food and nutrients, which they make through photosynthesis, using the sun’s light.
    • In turn, the corals give the algae a home and key nutrients.
    • The zooxanthellae also give corals their bright colour.

    What is Coral Bleaching?

    • Bleaching happens when corals experience stress in their environment due to changes in temperature, pollution or high levels of ocean acidity.
    • Under stressed conditions, the zooxanthellae or food-producing algae living inside coral polyps start producing reactive oxygen species, which are not beneficial to the corals.
    • So, the corals expel the colour-giving zooxanthellae from their polyps, which exposes their pale white exoskeleton, giving the corals a bleached appearance.
    • This also ends the symbiotic relationship that helps the corals to survive and grow.
    • Severe bleaching and prolonged heat stress in the external environment can lead to coral death.

    Impact of climate change

    • Over the last couple of decades, climate change and increased global warming owing to rising carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases have made seas warmer than usual.
    • Under all positive outlooks and projections in terms of cutting greenhouse gases, sea temperatures are predicted to increase by 1.5°C to 2°C by the time the century nears its end.
    • The first mass bleaching event had occurred in 1998 when the El Niño weather pattern caused sea surfaces in the pacific ocean to heat up; this event caused 8% of the world’s coral to die.
    • The second event took place in 2002.
    • In the past decade, however, mass bleaching occurrences have become more closely spaced in time, with the longest and most damaging bleaching event taking place from 2014 to 2017.

    Significance of Corals

    • Coral reefs support over 25% of marine biodiversity, including fish, turtles and lobsters; even as they only take up 1% of the seafloor.
    • The marine life supported by reefs further fuels global fishing industries. Even giant clams and whales depend on the reefs to live.
    • Besides, coral reef systems generate $2.7 trillion in annual economic value through goods and service trade and tourism.
    • In Australia, the Barrier Reef, in pre-COVID times, generated $4.6 billion annually through tourism and employed over 60,000 people including divers and guides.
    • Aside from adding economic value and being a support system for aquatic life, coral reefs also provide protection from storm waves.
    • Dead reefs can revive over time if there are enough fish species that can graze off the weeds that settle on dead corals, but it takes almost a decade for the reef to start setting up again.

    Current condition of the Great Barrier Reef

    • The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report this month, which warned that the life of the Great Barrier is in grave danger.
    • The report said that if temperatures continue to rise, bleaching events may occur more often and a large proportion of the remaining reef cover in Australia could be lost.
    • Just a couple of weeks after this warning, the Barrier Reef Authority confirmed a mass bleaching phenomenon affecting all pockets of the reef system.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Consider the following statements:

    1. Most of the world’s coral reefs are in tropical waters.
    2. More than one third of the world’s coral reefs are located in the territories of Australia, Indonesia and Philippines.
    3. Coral reefs host far more number of animal phyla than those hosted by tropical rainforests.

    Which of the above statements is/are correct?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1 and 3 only

     

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  • Back in news: Malabar Rebellion

    The Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) has deferred its decision on a recommendation to remove the 1921 Malabar Rebellion martyrs, including Variamkunnaathu Kunhahamad Haji and Ali Musliyar, from the list of India’s freedom fighters.

    Malabar Rebellion

    • The Malabar Rebellion in 1921 started as resistance against the British colonial rule and the feudal system in southern Malabar but ended in communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.
    • There were a series of clashes between Mappila peasantry and their landlords, supported by the British, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.
    • It began as a reaction against a heavy-handed crackdown on the Khilafat Movement, a campaign in defence of the Ottoman Caliphate by the British authorities in the Eranad and Valluvanad taluks of Malabar.
    • The Mappilas attacked and took control of police stations, British government offices, courts and government treasuries.

    Who was Variyankunna Kunjahammed Haji?

    • He was one of the leaders of the Malabar Rebellion of 1921.
    • He raised 75000 natives, seized control of large territory from the British rule and set up a parallel government.
    • In January 1922, under the guise of a treaty, the British betrayed Haji through his close friend Unyan Musaliyar, arresting him from his hideout and producing him before a British judge.
    • He was sentenced to death along with his compatriots.

    Back2Basics: “Dictionary of Martyrs” Project

    • The project for compilation of “Dictionary of Martyrs” of India’s Freedom Struggle was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, to the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) to commemorate the 150th anniversary of uprising of 1857.
    • In this dictionary a martyr has been defined as a person who died or who was killed in action or in detention, or was awarded capital punishment while participating in the national movement for emancipation of India.
    • It includes ex-INA or ex-military personnel who died fighting the British.
    • Information of about 13,500 martyrs has been recorded in these volumes.

    Who are included?

    • It includes the martyrs of 1857 Uprising, Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (1919), Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22), Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-34), Quit India Movement (1942-44), Revolutionary Movements (1915-34), Kissan Movements, Tribal Movements, Agitation for Responsible Government in the Princely States (Prajamandal), Indian National Army (INA, 1943-45), Royal Indian Navy Upsurge (RIN, 1946), etc.

    Five Volumes

    • Volume 1: In this volume, more than 4400 martyrs of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have been listed.
    • Volume 2: In this volume more than 3500 martyrs of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir have been listed.
    • Volume 3: The number of martyrs covered in this volume is more than 1400. This volume covers the martyrs of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Sind.
    • Volume 4: The numbers of martyrs covered in this volume is more than 3300. This volume covers the martyrs of Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura.
    • Volume 5: The number of martyrs covered in this volume is more than 1450. This volume covers the martyrs of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

    Try this question from CSP 2020:

    Q. With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following event?

    (a) The Revolt of 1857

    (b) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921

    (c) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60

    (d) Birsa Munda’s Revolt of 1899-1900

     

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  • What is the Affinity Test to Identify Scheduled Tribes?

    The Supreme Court wants to fix foolproof parameters to determine if a person belongs to a Scheduled Tribe and is entitled to the benefits due to the community as it is no longer sure about an “affinity test”.

    What is the Affinity Test?

    • Affinity Test is used to shift through anthropological and ethnological traits to link a person to a tribe.
    • There is the likelihood that contact with other cultures, migration and modernization would have erased the traditional characteristics of a tribe.
    • The claim by an applicant that he is a part of a Scheduled Tribe and is entitled to the benefit extended to that tribe, cannot per se be disregarded on the ground that his present traits do not match his tribes.
    • These include peculiar anthropological and ethnological traits, deity, rituals, mode of marriage, death ceremonies, method of burial of dead bodies etc.
    • Worship is an integral part of the life of a community and tribes have specific modes which need to be ascertained by the officers who decide the claims (for ST status).

    Who are the Scheduled Tribes?

    • The term ‘Scheduled Tribes’ first appeared in the Constitution of India.
    • Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as “such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution”.
    • Article 342, which is reproduced below, prescribes procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of scheduled tribes.
    • The first specification of Scheduled Tribes in relation to a particular State/ Union Territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation with the State governments concerned.
    • These orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament.
    • The above Article also provides for listing of scheduled tribes State/Union Territory wise and not on an all India basis.

    What did the Supreme Court say?

    • It has been considered it best to refer the question of fixing the parameters to a larger Bench.
    • The Bench emphasized that the issue was a “matter of importance” when it came to the issuance of caste certificates.
    • The affinity test may be used to corroborate the documentary evidence and should not be the sole criteria to reject a claim the apex court had warned.

    Why discuss this?

    • The Supreme Court has decided to refer the question to a larger Bench for an authoritative decision.
    • It realised that the courts were faced with varied opinions about the efficacy of the affinity test.

    Status of STs in India

    • The Census 2011 has revealed that there are said to be 705 ethnic groups notified as Scheduled Tribes (STs).
    • Over 10 crore Indians are notified as STs, of which 1.04 crore live in urban areas.
    • The STs constitute 8.6% of the population and 11.3% of the rural population.

    Precursor to this Judgements

    • On one side, a full Bench of the Bombay High Court in Shilpa Vishnu Thakur v State of Maharashtra accepted the “relevance and importance of the affinity test”.
    • The full Bench, in a decision in 2009, held that the affinity test was an “integral part” of the verification process for caste certificates.
    • Scrutiny committees could easily determine the authenticity of a claim by running an affinity test on the basis of ethnicity and anthropology.
    • The HC had said that the term ‘affinity’ meant the ‘association’ of the applicant for a caste certificate with a Scheduled Tribe into which he or she has been born.
    • However, two years later, in 2011, the Supreme Court adopted a cautionary note. It indicated that the affinity test may have run its course.

     

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  • India ranks 136th in the World Happiness Report 2022

    India ranks 136th in the World Happiness Report 2022, while Finland becomes the happiest country for the fifth consecutive year.

    One can definitely question the credibility of such reports whenever India is being grouped with some African countries that too below Pakistan.

    World Happiness Report

    • The WHR is an annual publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
    • It measures three main well-being indicators: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions (described in the report as positive and negative affect).
    • Since 2011, the World Happiness Report (WHR) is released every year around the time of International Day of Happiness on March 20.
    • It was adopted by the UN General Assembly based on a resolution tabled by Bhutan.

    How is the WHI derived?

    • The ranking is done on a three-year average based on surveys of ‘Life Evaluation’ conducted by Gallup World Poll which surveys around 1000 people from each country to evaluate their current life on a scale of 0-10.
    • On this scale, 10 marks the best possible and 0 as the worst possible life.
    • Further, six key variables GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption contribute to explaining life evaluations.

    Top performers this year

    • The top five countries in the list are from Europe.
    • While the United States held the 16th spot in the happiest countries list.
    • Following Finland, Denmark bagged the second rank, while Iceland and Switzerland stood at third and fourth rank.
    • The Netherlands was at the fifth rank in the list.
    • Meanwhile, Luxembourg, Norway, Israel, and New Zealand were the remaining countries in the top 10.

    Dismal performers

    • Afghanistan held the last position of 146th in the list, with Lebanon (145th), Zimbabwe (144th), Rwanda (143rd), and Botswana (142nd) following.
    • Bangladesh has improved its ranking by seven notches on the WHI from 101 last year to 94 in 2022 out of 146 countries included in the report.

     

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  • Defining who is ‘Assamese’: Attempts, Challenges

    Last week, the Assam government informed the Assembly that nearly 1.44 lakh illegal foreigners had been identified in the state this year based on the 1985 Assam Accord, and around 30,000 of them had been deported to their country of origin.

    Who is a foreigner under the Assam Accord?

    • The Assam Accord was signed in 1985 by the Centre and the Assam government with the All Assam Student Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad.
    • This movement had spearheaded the 1979-85 Assam Movement against migration from Bangladesh.
    • It was against all migrants from Bangladesh, irrespective of religion.
    • The Accord set March 24, 1971 as a cut-off. (The Assam Movement had demanded 1951 as the cut-off.)
    • Anyone who had come to Assam before midnight on that date would be an Indian citizen, while those who had come after would be dealt with as foreigners.
    • The same cut-off was used in updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

    What are the expressions for which the definitions have not been determined? Why are they important?

    • The definitions of phrases mentioned in the Accord such as ‘Axomiya janagan’ (Assamese people), ‘khilonjia’ (indigenous) and ‘adi basinda’ (original inhabitants) were yet to be determined.
    • The context is Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, which promises “constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people”.
    • However, it doesn’t  provide clear cut definitions to identify who would be the “Assamese people”.
    • Clause 6 is important because many felt the 1971 cut-off was inadequate.

    Issues with the cut-off date

    • The cut-off for the rest of India is 1948, many noted that the Assam Accord would grant citizenship to a section of migrants who would be counted as foreigners elsewhere in the country.
    • Clause 6 was, therefore, seen as a protective provision which would guarantee certain benefits to the Assamese people, while excluding some sections among those granted citizenship on the basis of the 1971 cut-off.

    Why is the ‘Assamese’ definition difficult?

    • Because Assam’s demography has been shaped by decades of migration.
    • Many of the migrants had settled here during the colonial era.
    • While they might not be native speakers of an indigenous language, such as Assamese or Bodo or Karbi, the question was whether the definition of “Assamese” could exclude someone, for example, whose family might have lived in Assam for 100 years.

    Have any definitions been proposed?

    • A key committee came in 2019, when Assam was rocked by protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which proposes to grant citizenship to various categories of foreigners including Hindus from Bangladesh.
    • The government set up the committee as a means to quell the protests.

    This committee recommended following persons as Assamese:

    1. All citizens who are part of the Assamese community
    2. Any person of indigenous tribal community of Assam
    3. Any other indigenous community of Assam
    4. Any other citizens of India residing in the territory or Assam on or before January 1, 1951 and
    5. Descendants of these categories
    • In essence, this definition includes not only the indigenous people but also all other Indian citizens, irrespective of mother tongue, as long as their ancestors were staying in Assam before 1951.

     

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