Article: “Mahatma Gandhi and Assam”
Context:
- Article Published on the occasion of Mahatma’s Birth Anniversary
Highlights:
- Deshbhakta Tarun Ram Phukan invited Gandhiji to Assam the argument that was placed before was that every Assamese household had the practice of spending hours on the spinning wheel creating such a strong influence on his mind that he cancelled another tour and expressed his willingness to visit Assam at the earliest.
- Gandhi’s first visit to Assam was in August 1921. He stayed at Deshbhakta Tarun Ram Phukan’s residence in Guwahati and lit a bonfire of foreign clothes in a gathering of around 25,000 Assamese.
- Gandhiji, in his widely read work ‘Hind Swaraj’ (1909), placed the Assamese people within the category of the Pindaris and the Thugs creating enough sensation among the educated Assamese.
- Pandit Hemchandra Goswami met Gandhiji with some of the Assamese classics to prove Gandhiji’s remark on the Assamese people as incorrect.
- Goswami presented the Assamese work Katha Gita by Bhattadeva (1558- 1638), the first prose version of the holy scripture written in any modern Indian language, to Gandhiji.
- . Gandhiji realized that it was a great mistake on his part to describe the Assamese in those unacceptable words in Hind Swaraj. He later wrote that it was certainly on his part a grave injustice done to the great Assamese people who are every whit as civilized as any part of India.