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Book Review: India's Indigenous Immigrants by Subir

Assam has been remained a mystery in the North East India for a long time. It got statehood around the independence of India, yet its geographical and cultural and social boundaries clash with one another. Unlike any other Indian state, it is not where a particular community’s portrait can be sketched. Reasons are aplenty. Senior author Subir Deb endeavors to picture Assam through his personal experiences and the immaculate research and data that he gathered from primordial to mythological to modern history…highlighting each of the epoch with an utmost honest narrative.


The book classified into fifteen chapters, stretched over 600 pages – it is all set to recount the other side of the story of Assam. Not only the book boasts of its brilliant content but also accurate with its data layout, with quotes and references and examples from a gamut of resources. A slow leisured pace will catch up with absolute fine reading if one needs to grasp the hidden aspects that went into the making of current Assam.

So far the history of Assam is presented in a distorted way. There have been many books that claimed Assam’s superiority and sovereignty over its immediate neighboring state: West Bengal. Subir expresses that Assam’s history is turbulent, not as smooth as any other state of India…plus the state ever since the dawn of the civilization continuously brimmed with diversity. Thus, after centuries, labeling it out as a state of just one community was wrong…and it will be the same even in the future.

Subir’s book opens up blind spots pertaining to this state, or a few in the North East. In Assam there is commotion, chaos, and absolutely no unity. He suffered in the state, in North East. As you read, you will come across the way his family and he was ill-treated, threatened to expel from their homes, being assaulted for life…discrimination kept him on tenterhooks…disturbed.

Assam’s strategic location played glorious role before 1947 or 1905…divisions. For Britishers and East India Company, it acted like a central location for trade and administrative vigilance. Till 1874 Assam was a part of Bengal province, however, as cultural and population of Hindus, Muslims, Bengalis, Assamese, and other tribes accommodated in that region….when Assam was declared…all of sudden languages began playing the critical role. Whosoever was speaking any other language other than Assamese was ignored and looked upon as an outsider, illegal immigrants.

The author explored the multi-ethnicity of the state by going back in the roots of history. How did opium trade affect the natives of Assam? During the British and Burma rule, people from various parts of the country took up jobs and business in the Assam region. However, when the political winds changed, even the largest living population there – Bengalis –were declared immigrants – surprisingly in their own country. No doubt that Assam being in border touch with Bangladesh received scores of illegal immigrants but in that heat Bengalis who were established there since centuries got uprooted by the locals, governments, and acts like IMDT and NRC.

Subir’s exploration of Bengalis in Assam is heartfelt, real, and honest. He explained quite clearly as during the partition of 1947, Sylhet region gone to East-Pakistan (now Bangladesh). And it became a bone of contention even today. The author was Sylheti Bengali, owing to its pre-independence roots. However, his college colleagues, classmates of her daughters in KV, his family friend in Meghalaya didn’t consider anything before labeling them. Their only fault is that they are Bengalis living outside mainstream West Bengal? Thus, they are subjected to identity test of citizenship.

This book is more than its facade; it not only studied Assam but Bengal also deeply. Many people might think that it is a biased literature; however, you should consider that Subir and his family was born and grew up in undivided Assam. When the state got in the clutches of division, he was taken for granted.

Overall, the content of the book is credible, good, and easy to read and assimilate. The book can be utilized by both: laymen and scholars/students/teachers. The best part is that the book chugs ahead with multi-faceted elements, not just focused on political or demographic account of Assam through ancient history to British to modern time. The book catches heavy momentum when it turns anecdotal, with stories from the author’s life. Otherwise, the facts and figures in the book are as justified as the author’s stance on the disturbed history of Assam.

The book is available to buy on Amazon India.

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