Revisiting the Crafting of an Assamese Nationalist Print Media in the Day’s Colonialist: A Review

It is a matter of fact that a colonialist knowledge, its function was to erect that past as a pedestal on which the triumphs and glories of colonizers and their instrument, the colonial state, could be displayed to best advantage. It is seen that the colonizer comprehensively measured differences between India and Great Britain. The colonized reconstructed their past for purposes opposed to the Indian rulers and made it ground for marking out their differences in cultural and political terms. In Assam it was hard to see any such indigenous nationalist project of counter appropriation except two or three agents from colonial bureaucracy in early decades of colonialism. The rivalries between two bourgeoisies (colonist and Indian) and their representations in colonialist and nationalist discourses did little to diminish the importance of this essential agreement. On the contrary, all transactions between the two parties which made up the stuff of elite politics followed from an understanding to abide by a common set of rules based on the British constitutionalist parliamentary model. Most of the Assamese dramas were translated from Bengali drama. There was hardly seen the original form of Assamese drama at that time. On the other hand on the behest of plantation industry an Assamese tea planting class begins with Maniram. The industry had also credited in producing a lot of political leaders besides enriching the literary and intellectual history of Assam right from the latter half of 19th century.So on the in hey days colonialism the print media Assam searching for space for Assamese cultural identity as well as Assamese nationalism.