Patriotism in Assamese Poetry

By HEM BARUA
(Principal, B. B. College, Gauhati)

“A sympathetic interest in history” Brandes says, “is the result of a refreshed interior life” The keynote to the literature of an era of Romanticism is this “sympathetic interest,” and “refreshed interior life.” History is reflective action; it enflames, directly or indirectly, patriotism and love of one’s motherland, its past heritage and distinctive culture. It is one of the many vital aspects of romantic literature all over the world; typical instances of this aspect of romanticism are found in the literatures of Italy and Germany, of England, France and Russia. In tune with the tradition of the age, the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi sings in one of his patriotic odes thus :

“Wake the dead,
“ Since the quiet sleep; bid the old heroes rise
And scourge with their tongues, until this vain
And rotting age, revitalised shall rush
To emulate their deeds, or learn to blush.”

Johann Ludwig’s poems, and Uhland’s ballads and patriotic songs, did much to forward this movement of romanticism in Germany. Ultimately this spirit of revolt spread to Russia whose greatest poet of the age, Alexander Pushkin, was banished to the Caucasus, after he had written some odes extolling freedom. To these poets, history is not a pageant on a Chinese scroll: it is a living entity. The contribution of the French Revolution to this movement of romanticism in literature is one of the most outstanding.

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If the ideas and passions of the French Revolution lit the flame of patriotism in the romantic renascence of the West, the subjection of India and a true pride in her cultural richness gave birth to a number of patriotic poems in the age of Romanticism in Indian literature. This is true of Assamese literature of the British period, as it is true of the other provincial literatures of India. The literature of this period, to use the words of Robert Bryant, was “marked by growth of agitation in every sphere of life against the British rule and domination.” The partition of Bengal, for instance, in callous disregard of the expressed objection of the nation, added fuel to the fire; it added, at the same time, a bitter sting to the patriotic poems of the time, Literature with a purpose, and a whole series of kindred publications, reflect this disturbed spirit.

Thus stimulated by the Swadeshi Movement, and the events thereafter, national sentiments came to dominate the people’s psychology. The tragedy of Jailianwalabag fanned the smouldering fire of patriotism to intense heat, and the flame widened into a consuming fire. In a sense, it is true to say that “misery and suffering and oppression are only useful as revolutionary stimuli when they serve to convince men that they are suffering unnecessarily and that it is in their power to alter things for the better.” (Ernst Toller) Ambikagiri Roy Choudhury’s lines on the Jallianwalabag tragedy are significant:

“Awake, awake Hindoos and Moslems,
Children of Mother India;
The conch-shell of deliverance
Sounds piercing through the plains of
Jallianwalabag
Painted red with the heart-blood of a
million brothers.”

Hegel’s observation is true; The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom. Every people, as Wendell Wilkie pointed out, has the right to be free, even if freedom means and implies misery and suffering. Liberty alone gives lustre and fragrance to the flower of life. The gospel of freedom is enshrined in the following lines of Hiteswar Borbarua, who was himself a redoubtable fighter inthe cause of freedom:

“For the cause of freedom
One who dedicates his life
In the field of struggle,
His death becomes a bliss,
His is eternal sleep,
His alone is perpetual peace.”

Rejuvenated with this spirit of freedom, the age of our struggle for national freedom was instinct with a new creative clan. These poets have sung of freedom, its true import and conception, of the sad conditions of women and of the socially and economically exploited classes etc., in numerous apt verses. The love of freedom, for instance, had inspired a cycle of patriotic songs round the personality of Maniram Dewan. Maniram Dewan was the most versatile genius of the early British period in Assam. He sought to free the country from British domination during the Sepoy Mutiny, and made considerable preparations for the enterprise. His scheme was however out-manoeuvred by an over-zealous police officer; he was awarded a death sentence as the fons et origo of a revolutionary programme; his execution took place in 1858. Maniram, who was a man of no ordinary calibre, has developed into a legend; his place is, rightly enough, in the national gallery of the people’s memory. The theme of his patriotism still works on the imagination of the people, and the people have rewarded Maniram’s self-sacrifice on the altar of patriotism with a rich volume of popular music. Like Kbudiram of Bengal inspiring a corpus of patriotic songs, Maniram who “mounted the gallows with a smile on his face” has paved, with his national idealism, the path to a rich growth of patriotic literature.

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Kamalakanta Bhattacharjee, writing since the time of the “Oronodoi,” a magazine which was first published in 1849 under the auspices of the American Baptist Mission, is preeminently a patriotic poet, and it must be said that his patriotic poems finally fanned into flames again the dying embers of Assamese nationalism, nearly smothered to death by the cataclysm of internecine strife during the early part of the 19th century. The deepest roots of Kamalakanta’s patriotism are in the old traditions of Assamese culture and life; it resembles Bezbarua’s with the difference that while the latter, a keen and penetrative analyst, derives, with his conscious and truth-loving mind, strong nourishment from the racy sap of the soil, the former studiously neglects this aspect of things.

Kamalakanta’s love of patriotic ideals, local in the Chintanolpoems, expands into a universal sphere in the Chintatarangapoems. The poet’s sadness mounts up at the thought that the ancient land of the Aryans, which gave manners and morals to the world, now forgets all about its rich heritage, and looks with wistful eyes to the West for culture and enlightenment. It was the product of a universal sentiment, permeating the intellectual climate of India, which marked a stubborn reaction against the reckless adoption of Western culture and manners. Kamalakanta has thus given consciousness and pride to a self-forgetful people, but it should be noted also that though he dreamt golden dreams of the future of our Motherland, he was neither a Mazzini nor a Milton; he was, in the main, a social reformer, a pugnacious controversialist, but not a statesman or a politician like Tarunram Phookon or Nabincbandra Bardoloi.

Lakshminaath Bezbarua was essentially a national poet, who gave national pride some of its highest expressions; his aim was to arouse in the people of Assam the sense of patriotism and pride in all that is truly Assamese, and his Success is great from this standpoint, concerned with the renascence of Assamese culture and literature Bezbarua is the creator of the Assamese national anthem. 0, Mor Aponer Desh, like the great Bande Mataram song, swaying with cadenced flow and evocative of images, or like the French Marseilles, is an excellent lyric. Like Robert Browning’s Home Thoughts From Abroad this little poem is a voluntary exile’s dream of his motherland from a distant country. It is instinct with the tenderness of a heart dreaming of the motherland in her infinite variety and loveliness:

“O my own land,
O my dear land,
A land bedecked with loveliness,
A land bedecked with luxuriant fruitfulness,
It is such a loving land.”

The mother conception, which Miller refers to in his book on psychopathy as the “Mother Archetype existing within our minds” and as evident in the song Bande Mataram, applies mutatis mutandits to Bezbarua’s 0, Mor Aponer Desh. Bezbarua, in his prose, attacks with Nietzschean boldness, all fibrous over-growth of foreign culture and, at the same time, attacks all those who try to belittle the possibilities of the mother-tongue.

Individuals of history, like incidents of history, have inspired the composition of a large number of patriotic poems in Assamese literature. Joymati, who was oppressed to death by a cruel regime, with a view to eliciting from her the news of her husband’s where-abouts, stands as a symbol of ideal womanhood. Padmanath Gohain-Barua, whose life-mission was the organisation of Ahom historical culture, has clothed the episode of Joymati with a new beauty and grace in a series of dramatic dialogues in the blank-verse form. Benudhar Rajkhowa, remarkable for his Chandra-sambhab kavya, has a few patriotic poems on Joymati, written in the ballad metre, in which the heroine sings her own tragedy in pastoral tunes. While Hiteswar Borbarua encompasses his patriotic emotions in longer narrative ‘poems, and Bezbarua in vigorous lyrical rhythms, Rajkhowa encompasses his in tender ballad-like monologues.

While Bezbarua seeks to re-construct the past with a vivid historical imagination, and build a “brave new world” in its light, Chandrakumar Agarwalla, who throws splinters on the painted veil of life and society, seeks to reconstruct a living present out of the ashes of the existing social debris. The national ideology, initiated by Gandhiji, was felt throughout the country and inspired the composition of numerous patriotic songs. Chandrakumar’s song, Nangatha Fakir or The Naked Mendicant, on the “Father of the Nation,” is an apt instance.

It is quite in the fitness of things that Chandrakumar, the poet of Manab Bandana, carried with him the democracy of mind all through life. Swayed by an intensely universal and patriotic passion, he is attracted by Gandhiji’s personality, “a humble man,” as in the words of Gandhiji, who “seeks to serve his country and through it humanity.”

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In the actual operational sphere, the patriotic poems of Nabinchandra Bardoloi and Tarunram Phookon, though few cast a greater spell than those of the drawing-room poet-patriots or the ivory-towerists. Tarun Phookon and Nabin Bardoloi are two outstanding figures in the political history of Assam; like the diver in Schiller’s ballad, they plunged into politics, and thus occupied themselves with the task of political regeneration initiated by the National Congress. Phookon has to his credit the poem Ai Mor Assom, which is less widely known than Nabinchandra’s lines that vibrate with the pulse of a drum-beat:

“Let youthful men and women,
heroes and heroines,
Bedeck the earth with youthful energies,
pleasant and radiant;
Let the earth quiver under the strides of their feet,
Let fire burn in their youthful eyes,
And let you march ahead;
March ahead shattering all bondages of death.”

Bardoloi’s poem Deka Gabharur Dol is noted for its militancy, vigour and life; the burden of the poem is not that of a nation weeping over and lamenting its fate, but of a nation girding itself for battle.

Ambikagiri Roy Chaudhury, whose life is a dedication to the cause of social enlightenment and political liberation, and who caught up Kamalakanta’s vigorous tune in his literary methods and made it more varied, is, like Walt Whitman, a poet of burning passion. He found in the realities of miseries and prison-rigours the inspiration for the most powerful lines and of the most moving words which he has given in his Songs of the Cell. (I was introduced to this book in 1942, in a British prison, by Gopinath Bardoloi.) In it, his lacerated heart pours forth all the pent up passions as indicated in the following lines:

“What more horrors would you show,
O prison cell,
What mote horrors can you show:
The redder you make your red eyes,
The greater is my triumph.”

Ambikagiri is a poet of patriotism; patriotism is no narrow creed with him; it is a broad democratic enthusiasm for humanity. Ambikagiri’s muse, forever responsive to the dreams and aspirations and forward-looking thoughts of his motherland, distinguishes the man as a great force in the life of the country.

“Let go all divisions, all vanities,
Singthirty crores of brothers,
Sing victory to Mother India,
Let heaven and earth resound
With the cry of her liberation
Or what use is there for you
To hold on to life?”

The victim of political suffering and persecution by a foreign rule, “torpid through two hundred years,” the soul of ‘India awakens and reveals itself “throbbing with a new vitality” in the pressing suggestion of unity, cultural and economic, and political re-awakening. Though his poems are laden with fire, like those of Kamalakanta’s, there is a rhythm in his poetry which adds to the musical element and felicity of expression. Like Uhland being rivalled by Henrich Heine in German literature, Ambikagiri, who treated the material more subjectively, rivals, in a sense, Kamalakanta, the pioneer poet of patriotism in Assamese literature.

There are other poets like Surjya Bhuyan, Binanda Barua, Padma Chaliha, Dimbeswar Neog, Saila Rajkhowa, Nalini Devi, Gonesh Gogoi and Deva Barua, who have a good number of patriotic poems to their credit. Most of the songs of patriotism that constitute the distinct gift of the new age to the Assamese language are composed under the stress of genuine emotions. Since the days of the inauguration of the British rule down to the days of Cripps’s“post-dated cheque,” the reford of British rule in Indiahad been one of brilliant failures and promises unachieved. Thishas moved poets and patriots alike. In the songs of these poet-patriots there is the representation of every shade of political feeling, from the most fiery advocacy of the demand for freedom of independence, to a Platonic sympathy for the cause.