Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has begun the brand new yr with an issue – suggesting that Bagh Hazarika, the 17th century Muslim warrior who fought the Mughals alongside legendary Ahom common Lachit Barphukan, is a fictional character.
This has enraged a bit of Muslim leaders who understand it as a “right-wing ploy to impress the neighborhood and divide Assamese society”.
By means of his speeches at current public features, Sarma, who belongs to the BJP, dug into the hows and whys of the historical past of Assam, and the Battle of Saraighat fought in March 1671.
“In case you learn your complete historical past of the Battle of Saraighat, you can see there’s no point out of Bagh Hazarika anyplace,” he stated at two current occasions – whereas addressing the state conference of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in Guwahati on January 8, and on January 12, at a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Assam Parishad, programme within the metropolis marking the beginning anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.
The Battle of Saraighat was a naval battle between the Ahom Kingdom and the Mughal Empire on the Brahmaputra River, near Saraighat (now in Guwahati). The Ahom military was led by Barphukan whereas Ram Singh was the central commander of the Mughal Military.
The Ahoms beneath the management of Barphukan and chief counsellor Atan Buragohain dealt a mortal blow to Mughal expansionist ambitions.
“It is extremely unlucky {that a} chief minister is making such an announcement. The identify of Bagh Hazarika options in Assam’s historical past. We’d encourage extra analysis, if somebody has doubts, than creating pointless controversy. The fitting-wing would by no means wish to recognise any Muslim historic proof. It’s the identical hidden agenda this time as nicely,” stated political activist Mehdi Alam Bora.
A press release issued by 10 Assamese Muslim intellectuals and students on 11 January has requested the state authorities to represent a committee of historians beneath a college in Assam to seek out out extra about warrior Bagh Hazarika, whose actual identify was Ismail Siddique.
The ten individuals embrace professors Abu Nasser Syed Ahmed and Poynuruddin Ahmed, former minister Samsul Huda, political activist Mehdi Alam Bora, and Kazi Nekib Ahmed and Mushtaq Golam Osmani of the Bagh Hazarika Analysis Discussion board.
Moinul Islam, president of Sadou Asom Goria Jatiya Parishad, a physique of indigenous Assamese Muslims, advised ThePrint: “There may be not sufficient documentation to show that Bagh Hazarika lived and fought in opposition to the Mughals in Assam, however his identify finds point out in historical past. This problem is a political conspiracy by vested teams, together with migrants who’ve settled in Assam.”
Additionally learn: With Lachit Barphukan, BJP is giving a historical past lesson to Congress on the best way to bear in mind icons
‘Can’t be dismissed as fiction’
In 1947, the Authorities of Assam, Directorate of Historic and Antiquarian Research, revealed Professor Surya Kumar Bhuyan’s (1894-1964) e-book ‘Annals of the Delhi Badshahate: Being a Translation of the Previous Assamese Chronicle Padshah-Buranji, with Introduction and Notes’.
Within the 244-page e-book, a footnote on ‘Assamese Muhammadan Commanders’ contained in Web page 231, makes a point out of Bagh Hazarika – “whose navy genius was partly answerable for the success of Lachit Barphukan’s operations in opposition to Ram Singh. It was heard from Maulavi Mufizuddin Ahmed Hazarika, creator of Jnan-Malini, and Authorities Literary Pensioner, Dibrugarh, a descendant of the stated Bagh Hazarika”.
Famous Assamese author and poet, and former Assam Director Basic of Police, Harekrishna Deka advised ThePrint that the existence of Bagh Hazarika can’t merely be dismissed as fictitious as a result of written histories of Assam don’t point out his identify.
“His legendary exploits could also be a part of oral historical past, having been in folklore for a fairly very long time. Historian Surya Kumar Bhuyan writes in Delhi Badshahate that Bagh Hazarika’s identify and exploits turned identified from his descendent Mafizuddin Ahmed Hazarika, an eminent Assamese poet, who had his data by household custom,” stated Deka.
“This information of ancestral historical past transmitted from mouth to mouth can’t merely be dismissed as fiction till conclusively proved in any other case,” he added.
Others within the examine of regional historical past, however who didn’t want to be named, stated there should be some sturdy proof to disclaim Hazarika’s existence, and that there’s scope for additional analysis and dialogue, with out creating chaos.
Muslims in Assam
CM Sarma has acknowledged the contribution of Assamese Muslims within the social material of the higher Assamese society.
On the January 12 occasion, he stated concerning the neighborhood: “They need to possess unbiased ideas, and politically too, they need to be keen to sacrifice every thing to guard our Jaati-Maati-Bheti. If we transfer forward with such a imaginative and prescient, we are going to stay undefeated”.
Referring to historical past, Alam Bora stated: “Muslims have contributed equally in constructing Assamese society, alongside the Ahoms. Muhammad Bin Bakhtiyar, a Turk of the Khilji tribe, had invaded Kamrupa (historic Assam) in 1205 AD, however suffered a defeat – you can see this inscribed as a Sanskrit couplet on a rock in north Guwahati.”
Within the ‘Annals of Delhi Badshahate’, Bhuyan wrote about Ghiyasuddin Iwaz-is-Hussain Khilji, Sultan of Gaur, who invaded Assam in 1226, however was defeated and compelled to return to Gaur.
Sarma, in his current speeches, has additionally accused Left writers and historians of “distorting” Indian historical past by making it a story of defeats and submission, to which Bora remarked: “Does the CM imply to say that historian Surya Kumar Bhuyan or Bodo novelist Medini Choudhury and different Assamese writers have been Leftists?”
The controversy over Bagh Hazarika started through the celebration of Barphukan’s four-hundredth beginning anniversary in November 2022. On that event, the Hindu Jagran Manch had stated Bagh Hazarika was a fictional character with none “symbolic illustration” in Assam’s historical past.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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