POLITICS OF IDENTITY, SUB-NATIONALISM AND CITIZENSHIP: A CASE OF NATIONAL REGISTER OF CITIZENS IN ASSAM

Abstract

The multi-ethnic and multi-cultural setting of India and India's struggle to define its nationhood since the nationalist movement provided a fertile soil for the development of different forms of identity-quest. Assam has always been a multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual state. The histories of immigration and migration of outsiders to Assam is not a recent phenomenon. It is very difficult to say, who actually constitute the indigenous population. Almost all groups living here seem to have come to the region, from different places at different points of time. Historically speaking, Assam's inclusion into British India gave a new direction to the process of migration. A line of demarcation was drawn between the 'indigenous' and 'outsiders' and a cry for the protection of 'Assamese identity' began to germinate. Identity formation among the Assamese community did not take place as a result of mere self-discovery, but was propelled by a fear of being overwhelmed by demographic change. When they were threatened on economic and cultural front, the Assamese evoked their identity of language and culture, to feel distinct (Baruah 2014). This feeling of distinctiveness gave way to the political expression of Jatiyotabadi or 'sub-nationalism' (sense of belongingness to a nation within the nation as an imagined community). Noted Assamese scholar Sanjib Baruah uses the term to refer to "a dynamic essence that makes it inherently differently from nationalism, but describes a situation at a particular historical moment" (Baruah 1999). While Baruah usages the term sub-nationalism in the context of Assamese aspirations and assertion of separate identity around the Assam Movement the usage of the term has been contested by other scholars. Marxist scholar Hiren Gohain refers to it as "Chauvinism" while historian Amalendu Guha has termed it as "Little Nationalism". For the purposes of this study the term sub-nationalism is used to refer and specify the feeling of distinctiveness within the Indian state.