Not many had been aware of the Sikh community in Assam and Meghalaya until recently. News of their clashes with the local Khasis in Shillong appeared in newspapers in June 2018 (Times of India; Hindustan Times). This suddenly brought them into community cognisance and drew attention to their presence in the North-Eastern states. Sikh association with this area is an old one with a chequered past. The result is a diverse community profile comprising the agriculturist Asomiya Sikh community settled in Assam for nearly 200 years, the Mazhabis Sikhs working as sanitation workers settled in both Assam and Meghalaya for nearly 100 years, and the Punjabi Sikhs, who arrived and settled there later.
The history of the Sikh connection with Assam goes back to the time of the Sikh gurus. In the Janamsakhi tradition, Guru Nanak is said to have visited Kamrup in Assam. His visit was commemorated with the construction of a gurdwara in Dhubri at Goalpara in Assam by the ninth guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur. Guru Tegh Bahadur’s visit to Assam is more precisely catalogued in Assamese bhuranjis as well as in the hukumnamas issued by the guru.
The evolution of the Sikh community in Assam has had various trajectories. Himadri Banerjee’s work traces the many stories surrounding the history of the Asomiya Sikhs, who made Assam their home in the 18th and the 19th centuries. More than historical works, he uses works of Assamese literature to reconstruct the past and understand the histories of their arrival and settlement. Among these are Lakshminath Bezbaroa’s novel Podum Kunwari (1890) serialised in the periodical Jonaki, Daibachandra Talukdar’s play Hardatta (1935) and Rajanikanta Bordoloi’s novels Manomati (written in 1900, published in 1993 by Sahitya Prakash Publishers) and Dandua Droh (published in 1919, and again in 1988 by Sahitya Prakash Publishers).
Some of these throw light on Sikh arrival in Assam in the 18th century within the context of local political upheavals related to the brewing discontent against the existing monarchy. Hardatta Chaudhary, a revolutionary leader fighting against the ruling Ahom king, seems to have requisitioned the help of mercenary Sikh soldiers. The story suggests that while the Sikh mercenaries under the leadership of Kumedan Singh fought for Hardatta initially, they turned against him when he failed to pay them the promised remuneration. Instead, they joined the Ahom king. Bezbarua and Daibachandra Talukdar depict these Sikhs as greedy outsiders, who ravaged the area of Kamrup for personal benefits. However, Bordoloi in his Dandua Droh tries to explain how their assault on the local peasantry could have been dictated by necessity (Banerjee 2007: 54–59). There are different opinions about the veracity of these representations.
Also read: Sikh separatism fighting existential battle but mishandling farmer protest can add fuel
Another set of Sikh soldiers seem to have arrived in Assam in the early 19th century. It appears that in the Assamese imagination, the image of Sikhs vastly changed with the new arrivals. The Burmese had been consistently involved in Assam power struggles since 1817 and had helped the weak Ahom ruler, Chandrakant Singha, get back his throne twice after being overthrown by family members. However, the Burmese divested him of power when he started getting suspicious of their intentions. This was when he is said to have solicited help from Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab. While local Asomiya legends corroborate the story that Maharaja Ranjit Singh sent about 300–500 soldiers to Assam on the request of the Ahom king to fight against the Burmese forces, critics are sceptical of the version. Birinder Pal Singh, for instance, feels that Ranjit Singh had good relations with the Burmese. Besides, a treaty with the British forbade him from sending his troops outside British-held territories. Hence, it seems that the forces commissioned by the Ahom ruler might actually have been part of the mercenary Sikh troops once in service of the nawabs of Bengal but later disbanded by them.
Among them could also be the Bihari Sikhs, called Dumdamiyas, who had accompanied Guru Tegh Bahadur to Assam and whose descendants were headquartered at Gurdwara Dumdama Sahib at Dhubri. While the debate continues, folklore says that the Ahom rulers lost and Chaitanya Singh died in battle, bravely defending the Assamese king’s claims to power against the Burmese. Local tales talk about the exceptional bravery of these Sikhs under their brave commander, Chaitanya Singh. This has been reinforced by the account in Bordolai’s Manomati in which Sikh Subedar Chaitanya Singh is painted as a loyal ally who fought the Burmese ‘outsiders’ on behalf of the Assamese royalty.
The next influx of Sikhs in the early 20th century was to bring a completely different community profile to Assam. Their circumstances of arrival were such that instead of assimilating into the local culture, they stood out as different from it. While their life gradually changed from the one they left behind, it failed to grow strong roots in the new environment. As the British established their clout in Assam, they also made arrangements for the new administration which was to take charge. To keep the city of Shillong clean, a British military regiment, once stationed in Punjab, brought with them members of the Churha (sweeper) caste among Sikhs. Most of them came from the districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur. By 1910, a separate section of Sikh sweepers and scavengers were employed on the payrolls of the Shillong Municipal Corporation for solid waste management of the British wards. Their services were later extended to the entire city. They were given fixed salaries and houses in the area called Bara Bazaar, which was distanced from the rest of the city. Regular payment and availability of accommodation fuelled migration and more Sikhs started trickling into Shillong. Gradually, as the numbers increased, they were given accommodations in Gora Lines in the Laitumakhra area and employed in varied jobs in the municipality.
The work entrusted to the Sikh sweepers seems to have been unfit for humans from today’s perspective. Every man had to pick night soil from dry latrines, carry it on his head to throw it into bigger containers. These were transported in bullock carts to a designated place. The bullocks and the carts were then parked close to their place of residence, where they also had to help wash them every day. There were added problems like heavy rains, landslides, water getting collected at these places that also led to diseases (Banerjee 2018). Meanwhile, there was anger building up among the locals in Assam against outsiders being brought into their land by the British. Around 1920, ‘Line System Legislation’ was implemented in Assam, which restricted all forms of permanent entry and settlement within the area brought under the act. The sweeper Sikhs were asked to provide domicile certificates, which most of them did not have. The result has been the ghettoisation of the Sikh community in restricted areas where they had been forced to settle in by the British.
Also read: A legal breakdown of the BJP’s four controversial arguments in defence of CAA
These two different Sikh streams have evolved very differently over time, and that has impacted their contemporary social profiles. In the Assamese imagination, the Asomiyas have been accepted as insiders but the sweeper Sikhs continue to be branded as outsiders. Their contemporary profiles reflect the reasons for the same too. The Asomiya Sikhs have completely integrated themselves into local life. While they have continued to follow Sikh religious practices and have maintained the Sikh appearance, they are deeply entrenched in local cultural practices. Intermarriages with locals among the early settlers and close social interaction with them through the decades has influenced every aspect of their life. The Asomiya Sikhs not only strongly reiterate their Assamese identity but also posit it as distinct from the Sikhs who arrived later.
The veracity of their commitment to the Assamese identity can be gauged by the fact that they actively participated in the Assam movement from 1979–1985. The large-scale infiltration of Bangladeshi immigrants into Assam after the formation of Bangladesh in 1971 created a furore which led to a movement against all foreigners. Asomiya Sikhs actively participated in identifying outsiders and fought for the rights of the local and tribal population, which ironically would go against the other Sikhs of Assam, the safai karamcharis.
Unlike the Asomiya Sikhs, sweeper Sikhs have been constructed as outsiders by the locals. The life of these Sikhs continues to be markedly Punjabi in its orientation. Their alienation from the local people and the administration has grown due to other factors too. The colonial policy of keeping them out of sight of the civil population laid the foundation for their exclusion from the assimilatory process. Restricted within the prescribed quarters outside city areas has prevented them from settling in the city. Over time, this led to congested pockets of Sikhs, surrounded by other ethnic groups, which has only increased their differentiation from the local population.
This excerpt from ‘The Sikh Next Door: An Identity In Transition’ by Manpreet J. Singh has been published with permission from Bloomsbury India.