Along the Red River: A Memoir

ZUBAAN

An imprint of Kali for Women

128b Shahpur Jat

1st floor

New Delhi 110 049

Email: contact@zubaanbooks.com

www.zubaanbooks.com

First published by Zubaan, 2013

Copyright © Assamese, Sabita Goswami

copyright © English translation, Triveni Goswami Mathur, 2012

All rights reserved

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eBook ISBN: 9789383074266

Print source ISBN: 9789381017012

This eBook is DRM-free.

Zubaan is an independent feminist publishing house based in New Delhi, India, with a strong academic and general list. It was set up as an imprint of the well known feminist house Kali for Women and carries forward Kali’s tradition publishing world quality books to high editiorial and production standards. ‘Zubaan’ means tongue, voice, language, speech in Hindustani. Zubaan is a non-profit publisher, working in the areas of the humanities social sciences, as well as in fiction, general non-fiction, and books for young adults that celebrate difference, diversity and equality, especially for and about the children of India and South Asia under its imprint Young Zubaan.

Typeset by Jojy Philip, New Delhi 110 015

Printed at Raj Press, R-3 Inderpuri, New Delhi 110 012

Contents

Dedication

Quote

Foreword

Author’s Note

Translator’s Note

Along the Red River

About the Author and Translator

For my daughters Triveni and Nandini, companions in my life’s struggles.

And my grandsons, Aarnee and Donyii, who have brought happiness even in my most painful moments.

Foreword

During my years as the BBC’s Delhi correspondent, we relied on our team of local correspondents throughout India to maintain the BBC’s reputation for broadcasting correct news, and broadcasting it first. One of the most dedicated members of this team was Sabita Goswami, who reported for us on Assam and the Northeast. Sabita broke major stories like the massacre of Chaulkhowa Chapori that rocked the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in New Delhi in 1983. She provided the BBC with extensive coverage of the violent 1983 Assam State elections and of the ULFA and Bodo insurgencies. A person of great integrity and high professional standards, she had a wide range of contacts throughout the Northeast and made a point of travelling to the remotest areas to ensure authentic coverage. This coverage made it possible to give detailed news of the Northeast that was broadcast not just in English but in many Indian languages such as Bengali and Hindi.

I am very happy that her autobiography has been translated into English.

29 May 2010

Author’s Note

In the undulating journey of life, I met several people. Each one of them played a role in my life – directly or indirectly. While some have encouraged and enthused me, others have brought about impediments and obstacles. Such diverse attitudes of the human mind strengthened my resolve to face life. My family showered their love and affection on me and always reposed their confidence in me – especially my eldest and youngest brothers who encouraged me to move ahead in life courageously. My two daughters stood by me through this turbulent journey of life.

Mon Gongaar Teerot (Along The Red River) would have remained an indelible part of my memories had it not been for the belief that the editor of Dainik Janambhumi, Hemanta Burman, had in me. He felt that my experiences touched upon a mosaic of issues through my personal struggle. Thus, what began as an autobiographical column in Dainik Janambhumi’s Sunday supplement Vasundhara, has today taken the shape of a book. Only expressing my thanks and acknowledgement to Hemanta is not enough!

As the column continued to be published, I was flooded with letters. The column elicited responses from young and old, men and women, even people who I had lost touch with. Almost all of them had a positive word on the writing and expressed their thoughts on the issues. However, I also got to hear the reservations that some of my husband’s relatives had about my blatantly honest and truthful writing.

As part of my professional habit, like all journalists, I too had detailed notes of my assignments especially of my extensive travels to all the states of the Northeast. I also had extensive notes of the Assam Agitation, its consequences and the situations arising thereafter. I had a clippings file of some of my major and exclusive stories. However, when I had to shift from Assam, most of my records and notes were misplaced, except a few. While writing the book, I relied entirely on the events etched in my memory and some notes that I still had left with me. I probably have missed out on some events or relevant anecdotes. Strangely, whenever I was stuck with a certain date or year, I often came across contemporary articles written by other writers where I got reference to the date I was looking for. It was as if Providence helped me at the right time. Of course, with the personal details it was as if I relived each moment of my life.

Having read my serialized autobiographical column in Dainik Janambhumi’s Vasundhara, the editor of Anwesha Publications, Paresh Malakar, approached me with a proposal to compile the series into a book. For me it was like a dream come true. I am indeed grateful to Paresh Malakar and his entire team.

Mon Gongaar Teerot (Along The Red River) is not a book written in chronological order of events. It is a true tale of my life. I am not sure how readers will respond to my book. But I am confident that there will be some response – positive or negative. Readers will definitely not be indifferent!

I place before you Mon Gongaar Teerot.

Translator’s Note

This is an autobiography with a difference. The reason I choose to say this is because the incidents in the book are not written in a chronological sequence but follow a narrative that is akin to the flow of thoughts – almost using a literary stream of consciousness technique.

What also makes this book different is that the turbulent socio-political condition of the 1970s until 1990s of the Northeast in general and Assam in particular becomes a ‘character’ in the book.

The author, Sabita Goswami, as a journalist, and incidentally the first woman field reporter of the Northeast representing international news organisations like the BBC, and AFP and Indian publications Blitz and The Week, experienced the Northeast in a manner that was unheard of at that time. Her personal and professional lives are so intertwined that the reader possibly cannot imagine one without the other. This is yet another reason why this book does not follow a chronological sequence or time line as most autobiographies do. As the author says, this is the stark truth of my life and living.

So, as a translator, I would like to caution the reader not to expect yet another historical or political treatise listing in chronological order events in the Northeast, but to find reasons and undertones of conflict, contradictions and a labyrinth of issues that have plagued the region over time.

The author, through her first-hand exposure and deep understanding, points out the inherent conflicts and contradictions that exist among various ethnic groups in the region – inter-state as well as intra-state. She terms the concept of Northeast a political myth where political parties look for solutions that are not only superficial but superfluous. While the region has been reeling under these problems, the various socio-political uprisings of the 1970s and 1980s only helped the contradictions to surface, the effect of which continues to be felt even today. This further fragmented the society instead of making it a cohesive group addressing the common issues of the region. But, as the author questions: Are there common issues that can be fought on a common platform? Unfortunately, the region also does not have a statesman to voice the concerns of the Northeast with objectivity keeping in mind the socio-political- cultural nuances of the region. What makes the book interesting is that events, as covered by the author, reflect all these aspects.

While the style of the narrative is almost lyrical, the author has maintained complete objectivity in her journalistic style even while presenting her personal struggle in life to establish herself and later her two daughters fighting against orthodox social rigidity in the heart of Guwahati city. Just as a reporter presents events as they happen without any subjectivity creeping in, Sabita Goswami has also bared her personal struggle with equal objectivity becoming at once ruthlessly honest and totally detached.

I must mention here my own experience as I translated the book, for my role was slightly complex being also a participant in the gamut of situations that the author experienced in her life. For I am her elder daughter. My professional training as a journalist helped me immensely in being able to detach myself from the book while translating it, yet at the same time being able to communicate the emotional nuances of the author in its entirety. Just as in life, my sister Nandini and I were always together with our mother, in the working of this translation too, my sister Nandini played a very integral role of an objective reader and a critic of the translated version of this book.

There is a lot between-the-lines that makes the reader stop, ponder and reflect. She has not mentioned any of her family members’ names saying that the events are the characters of my life, not the people therein.

I, on behalf of the author and myself, take this opportunity to thank the publishers, Zubaan, for taking this book to a larger audience.

Pune,

July, 2012

1

19th April 1980

In the wee hours of the morning I got a call from my sources that indefinite curfew had been clamped in Guwahati. I jumped out of bed, changed quickly and rushed to the main road near Guwahati Club in the heart of the city.

The city seemed to be under siege. The Army had just staged a flag march, the jawans in full uniform and heavily armed with guns and ammunition. Faces could be seen at every window of the houses lining the road. They looked tense with fear. I came back and filed my news report to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) where I worked as a correspondent. Later in the day, I also filed a story for The Daily and did an analytical piece for Blitz – both belonging to the same publishing house in Mumbai. I was staff correspondent. After I had filed my BBC story first thing in the morning, I woke up everyone at home and told them that curfew had been imposed. Nagen Sarma, the advisor of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), that spearheaded the Assam agitation against illegal immigrants, was at our house at the time. He looked completely confused and rushed out followed by my husband. I stopped my daughters from leaving and told them, If either of you go out in this curfew then I won’t be able to do anything except worry about your safety. Anything might happen, the way things are.

As the news of curfew spread, people rushed out of their homes and gathered on the streets. There was a vast sea of people there, all screaming and yelling. Popular slogans rent the air: "Aaah oi Aah, Ulai Aah (Come one and all, Come out of your homes!), Asom morile, aamiu morim," (If Assam dies, so will we!) "Ei jui jolise, jolise joliboi (This fire has flared, and flare it will!). Citizens conquered fear and terror and marched towards the oil installation in Narangi on the outskirts of Guwahati. The extraction of crude oil from the oilfields of Assam had long been a sore point for the Assamese who were extremely resentful that the Central Government was continuing to exploit Assam’s oil and other resources. The feeling that this was being done at the cost of local development was a widespread one and this became one of the rallying points of the Assam Agitation. Local citizens came together to stop crude oil from being pumped out of Assam and to set up blockades to stop the supply of jute, plywood, timber and bamboo to feed industries in other parts of India. In fact the situation became so bad that in 1980 when it became impossible for the Barauni oil refinery in Bihar to function, the Centre announced that two kilometers of land on either side of the 600 kilometre crude oil pipeline in the state be a Reserved area. Following widespread unrest the entire state (except for some small area in the southeast) was declared a disturbed area and the government brought in legislations that made it unlawful to stop the functioning of certain essential services". The Centre became very unpopular as a result and every Assamese heart seethed with anger at the callousness. It seemed as if the government’s only intention was extracting Assam’s resources.

Assam simmered with anger and resentment. A fiery slogan written in blood by a young man called Dulal Sarma on Guwahati’s main Gopinath Bordoloi Road fuelled the already inflamed emotions of the Assamese. "Tej dim, tel nidiu" (we will shed blood, but not give oil) he’d written, an emotionally charged statement that echoed the sentiments of the Assamese who felt that unless they took violent steps, the Centre would never pay attention to local demands. The fire of anger against the aggressive measures of the government burned in every heart.

That day is still fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday! After having spent four decades as a journalist in the turbulent Northeast, even today I wonder what it was that inspired this tremendous surge of people’s power. Were the leaders of this agitation capable of giving direction to this force? Most of the agitation’s top brass had already been arrested as a preventive measure. Bhrigu Phukan – the secretary of the AASU, Nagen Sarma, advisor to AASU – and other senior leaders of the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad like Atul Bora and Nibaron Bora, who jointly spearheaded the agitation with AASU, had all been picked up by the security forces. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the president of AASU was nowhere to be found and so escaped arrest.

While I would not go so far as to say that the Assam Agitation brought justice to the State or to the citizens who reposed their trust and faith on the apolitical organizations I would say that it came as a blessing in disguise for me. It gave me an opening to take up journalism as a career – a profession that I’d wanted to get into for a long time. Anand Sahay, special correspondent of Blitz and The Daily came to Assam from New Delhi and met me since I was already filing stories on the region. The Deputy Chief of the BBC in India, Satish Jacob, was with him. Besides explaining the background of the Assam Agitation to them, I also gave them a background on the socio-political history of Assam. I took them to meet the student leaders who were spearheading the agitation, senior government and police officials and politicians from different parties. It was then that Satish Jacob asked me if I was interested in working for the BBC. Surprised, I turned to look at Anand Sahay who explained that the BBC and Blitz were not competitors. So I told Satish, I am interested.

On his return to New Delhi, Satish Jacob apprised the Chief of Bureau, Mark Tully, that Assam and the Northeast had become an attractive news destination with the need for regular updates and that the region could no longer be ignored by the media. With this in mind, Mark Tully spoke to the BBC World Service Eastern Chief, William Crowley, in London and appointed me as a correspondent. Mark Tully who was based in New Delhi, monitored news from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Myanmar. To be associated with the BBC World Radio Service was a unique experience for me and a distinct career highlight. Many years back I’d applied for a job at The Assam Tribune, but I’d been rejected. After that, I’d never applied again to any regional or metropolitan newspaper for fear of being disappointed. I was not interested in working at the desk, never had been and so even though I had a deep desire to be a journalist I settled for a teaching job so that I could shoulder my responsibilities and take care of my daughters.

The Assam Agitation opened opportunities to pursue my journalistic career. Those were exciting days for any reporter to cover. To be in the thick of momentous events, to be able to record history as it happens was a heady feeling. This was something I had dreamt of doing ever since my youth. But, as it happened I did not chase this youthful dream with passion. On the contrary, I plunged into the fairly run-of-the-mill life of marriage, home and hearth. Until, finally, witnessing the vicissitudes of my life, destiny ensured that journalism chase me. But I am getting ahead of myself. I should go back to the beginning of my story. My thoughts often go back and forth as I flip through the pages of my life!

2

It was a damp winter’s evening in Delhi. Paromita, a young psychotherapist whom I used to know many years ago had dropped in to see me unannounced. I was surprised for I hadn’t met her for almost ten years. I had first met her in 1993 when I was posted in Delhi. A year later she left for Kolkata and I returned to Assam. Paromita disappeared from the recesses of my mind. Although she was younger than I, my curiosity and interest in her profession bridged our age difference, as if we were contemporaries. Meeting with her again after so many years filled my mind with confusing thoughts. The only link between her and me was a word – just one word – schizophrenia! It was on a trip that we’d taken together to Lakshmanjhula a long time back and there, as we stood on the banks of the turbulent Ganges, I asked her about schizophrenia. She explained everything to me in detail, the traits and behaviour of schizophrenics, and that it is difficult to figure out when their otherwise ‘normal’ behaviour takes an abnormal turn. Such people have two distinct personalities – just like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. As I listened to her I froze!

My thoughts went back to 1964. It was the day of the auspicious Durgashtami puja and I found myself confronted with an unimaginable situation. Even today, I am dumbfounded when I think about it and wonder if any wife has had to go through such an experience. My husband who was sitting with me, picked up my baby girl from my lap and handed her over to the maid. Taking me by the hand, he then led me to our bedroom. I was shocked. In the bedroom, he said, Don’t be scared! You are my Goddess. I will offer my prayers to you on this day. He then made me sit on a chair. On the table, in a plate were a diya, incense sticks, a few blood red hibiscus which were offered to the goddess on Durgashtami, and some sindoor. I was very frightened. I didn’t have the courage to leave the room and to defy my husband when he was in this kind of mood. I had already experienced the consequences of doing so earlier. I was crying without a stop. Angrily, my husband said, Wipe your tears! and then, even before I could wipe away my tears, he took the plate, smeared sindoor on my forehead, as he would to Goddess Durga, and offered aarti to me. I could barely breathe! I thought my heart would burst. Finally when I left the room I found my daughter crying inconsolably. I was ashamed of what he’d done. I couldn’t bring myself to face the maid with so much sindoor on my forehead. I was ashamed to tell people about this incident. I was just 24 years old at the time. The mental torture that my husband inflicted on me was beyond the provisions of law and I often felt that his cruelty was the result of guilt. I even read some books on psychology to find answers to his inexplicable behaviour. Till 1992, every Durgashtami, my husband would make sure that he hurt me the same way.

But there was nothing I could do. There was just no escape. Sometimes I prayed that he would fall in love with another woman. Perhaps, then, I would be free to go back to my mother’s home. But I didn’t really think that this wish would come true because my husband was extremely possessive about me. And it seemed to me that this aarti and worship was his way of showing his love and affection towards me or perhaps it was his way of showing his ownership and authority over my body and soul. During our courtship, a year before we got married, he would often recite Browning’s My Last Duchess and say to me, I will kill you and hide you so that only I can look at you. Only my eyes shall behold you…. At that time, innocent and naive as I was, I would rest my head on his shoulders and think to myself, How romantic my life will be with this man!

I was married in November 1962. The Chinese had just crossed over into Indian territory. The town of Tezpur, about four hours drive from Guwahati, was very tense. People were traumatized at the news that China had transgressed the international border, disregarded the Mc Mahon line and ‘recovered’ Kameng district’s Tawang, Bomdila and other places in Arunachal Pradesh from the Indian Army. The Indian soldiers were caught completely unaware. They were not prepared, neither were they acclimatized before being sent off to fight a war in the snow-clad Himalayas, thousands of feet above sea level. There was no provision to supply them with adequate warm clothing, neither did they have the latest arms and ammunition to help them fight. Consequently, the Indian soldiers began retreating even before the declaration of ceasefire on 21st November 1962. It soon came to light that the bunkers of top Indian Army officers were covered with warm Tibetan carpets and equipped with all necessities to withstand the cold while the poor soldiers fought without shoes and overcoats. The common man was totally disillusioned when these news reports appeared in the national press.

The government urged the citizens to donate gold to buy arms and ammunition and also woollens and blankets for the soldiers. The women of Tezpur knitted woollens for them and sent blankets and quilts. People donated as much as they could. My mother donated quilts, blankets and her gold ring. I knitted sweaters. However, it was too late – the Indian Army had already started retreating.

Announcing the retreat, the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, made a statement that even today stirs the hearts of the Assamese people, My heart goes out to the people of Assam. It was as if he was saying that the Indian government had given up on Assam! Although this has gone into the pages of history, it continues to trouble the Assamese. The memory of how the Indian soldiers abandoned the hapless citizens of Tezpur is something that the Assamese people have not forgotten. It was a terrible feeling of being let down by those you trusted.

My memories of November, 1962 are still bright and fresh. I was married on 23rd November 1962 and we moved from a deserted Tezpur to Guwahati because my fiancé refused to postpone the wedding despite the tense situation in Assam. I was very unhappy about this. My parents too were unable to understand his obduracy. Bipin, our domestic help, had disappeared amid all the chaos and we were desperately looking for him in the refugee camps where we’d been told he’d gone along with many others. We returned home with him around 10 pm on the 22nd, just a day before my marriage.

The joron ceremony was early the next morning when the groom’s older relatives were supposed to come with clothes, ornaments and sindoor for me. The wedding was in the evening. My fiancé had donated the money meant for the reception expenses to the disaster relief fund and so our wedding was a very simple affair. Our celebrations were anyway very low key and I was disappointed because none of my friends could make it to my wedding. I was troubled and very afraid. Was it fear of the unknown? Or was it because so many friends of the family had expressed concern regarding my alliance to my parents? My elder brother too was vehemently opposed to it. He rushed home from Umtru, in Meghalaya, where he was then working as an executive engineer on a hydel project when my father told him She wants to marry him. Deuta, my father, Maa, and Dada were cooped up for a long time discussing this and then Dada tried to convince me not to get married so soon. He wanted me to think about going out of Assam for my graduation. Dada said he would ensure that I got the opportunity to do so. Unable to convince me, Dada went back. Deuta too tried to convince me to finish my education, Complete your M.A. Then, get married to this boy but prompted by my suitor and drowning in the ocean of love, I wrote to Dada the following day: I will not go out of Assam to study. I will either marry him now or nobody at all! Dada sent a telegram to Deuta: Received Annie’s letter. Decide likewise…

Apparently, my fiancé’s friends had warned him against marrying me. Their reason was that I was too smart! As a school and college student I was actively involved in music, dance, drama, debates and discussions. I would interact with my male friends on an equal platform. To be honest, I was a little flirtatious and I enjoyed the attention of some of my young teachers too. It was not love, neither was it infatuation—I just enjoyed the attention. It led to a serious problem once when a young boy went crazy and kept calling out my pet name, Annie! Annie! He was in first year of Junior College and I was in second year and I had never even spoken to him! He had a very wild look in his eyes and I had heard of his obsessive behaviour. So had my mother. I still remember my mother’s beautiful doe eyes seething with anger. I told Maa, What can I do if somebody is mad about me? C’mon let’s go and ask him if I have ever talked to him. Maa believed me. In our home, Maa and Deuta had instilled self-confidence in us and they always took us at our word. I don’t know what happened to him eventually because that very year, I went away to Guwahati to complete the second year of my intermediate studies.

At the wedding mandap, the flames of the havan scared me. My friend Indira’s words crossed my mind: From now on, you have to live your life only for others, she had said. Do I really have to live only for others now? Would my own Maa, Deuta, brothers and sisters become alien to me? Would my husband give me a life of trust, faith and security? I peeped out of my veil to see my man utter the Hindu mantras. With the fire witness to our union, had my man realized the sanctity of the mantras that he had uttered? Would he live up to them?

I stepped into my new home as a bride. My jethai (father’s elder sister) accompanied me. I was asked by him to bow down to the elders as is customary. An educated girl need not touch my feet to show respect, I heard someone say aloud. I was stunned. I overheard my husband tell his mother, Why are you doing this? You like it, don’t you, to expose the lack of culture in this house?! My mother-in-law grumbled. I seemed to be the reason for her displeasure. I was very young; I was yet to complete my graduation and here I felt I had stepped into a completely unknown, alien world. A world I didn’t belong to. I was offered a very low flat stool (peera) to sit on. In that family apparently a daughter-in-law could not sit at the same