Majuli (Assam): Among the many tree lines that adorn the sylvan landscape of Majuli –the world’s largest river island– can be seen tall signboards standing almost ten feet from the ground, welcoming tourists with catchy taglines like ‘Slow down your Life in Majuli’ but down below on tree trunks are small rectangular signage with white background and red borders that reads like ‘Ram’ in Assamese, written in blood red colour.
Two years after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s rise to power, snatching the political reins in Assam from the Congress, the seat of Vaishnavite culture and heritage – Majuli – was also catapulted into the political spotlight when the saffron party chose Sarbananda Sonowal from the island as its chief ministerial candidate.
Besides the Ram signs, a clear evidence of the Rashtriya Swayamasevak Sangh (RSS) influence is one Satra (a monastery associated with the Ekasarana tradition of Vaishnavites) and its head who reportedly has close ties with the BJP due to which it reportedly supported giving citizenship to Hindus from neighbouring countries.
With RSS influence looming large over Majuli, its potential World Heritage Site could be as risk, says some experts involved with the island’s culture and topography. The river island has been on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage since 2004.
“In the many decades that I spent working with the people of Majuli, I never ever heard about Ram signs. Of late, people have been telling me how the RSS has been exerting its presence there. This is unfortunate, as Majuli has always been a place for Vaishnavite philosophy that preaches universal harmony and brotherhood. There has never been any division on religious basis in Majuli. But with RSS’s influence, this could change. The Assamese Vaishnavites are about culture. Bhaonas or traditional plays are performed based on plays like Ram Bijoy and others, but never has Ram come up in signage. Even if the RSS tries to exert its influence, the people of Majuli will never accept their divisive ideals. Whatever is happening is due to a wave and we know what it is. If this continues, Majuli will never become a UNESCO heritage site. Such sites demand to be free from divisive religious discourse,” says Bharat Saikia of Majuli Island Protection and Development Council, which had prepared the first dossier on Majuli for the UNESCO tag in 1998.
Since 2016, the island has undergone changes both administratively and ideologically. Once, a sleepy sub-division which was part of neighbouring Jorhat district, the island is now a full-fledged district under the administrative control of a newly appointed deputy commissioner. Ideologically, according to some inhabitants of the island, the shadow of RSS looms large over the ubiquitous Satras or Vaishnavite monasteries the island is famous for.
Signage that read like ‘Ram’ written in Assamese have cropped up on trees in the area. Credit: Gaurav Das
“RSS influence has been gaining ground ever since the BJP came into power. The evidence of its presence is the ‘Ram’ signs written in Assamese and nailed on tree trunks. This was not the case before. The locals here don’t worry about the influence of RSS or saffron agenda. But I do worry. I don’t want the presence of divisive politics to be at play that would divide the pluralistic Assamese community into ethnic lines. I am a Bengali, but Majuli has been my home since I was young. The island is a reflection of the diverse Assamese community. If the Assamese community gets divided over religious or ethnic lines, it would be a terrible loss for Majuli and Assam as a whole,” says Kishori Mohan Paul, former teacher and member of the Communist Party of India, who runs the island’s only English fortnightly, Majuli News.
Paul told The Wire that he is constantly trolled on social media because of his views. In January, he even filed an FIR at the Majuli police station against a person who termed Mahatma Gandhi as a coward on Facebook.
Some prominent Satras or monasteries (it is said that there were around 64 Satras before the 1950 earthquake. of which 22 remain) and its Satradharikars or heads of these religious establishments that were founded by the 15th century saint and social reformer Srimanta Sankaradeva (1449-1568) and received patronage by the Ahom kings, scoff at the idea of RSS influence penetrating the Satras, say that religious establishments like theirs are immune to any political ideology. However, they lament the idea of ‘modernity’ seeping into the island.
“We are free from any forms of political leanings. We are spiritual establishments. And it is important for us to remain that way. But at the same it is important that Majuli’s identity and culture are preserved at all costs. This is the pride of Assamese culture and identity, but modernity is seeping in more than ever before. We have seen how people’s habits on the island have changed. They no longer adorn themselves with traditional attire or garments. We are keeping the spiritual adherence of people in Majuli intact in contemporary times,” says Nonigopal Dev Goswami, Satradharikar of Dakhinpat Satra.
While these spiritual heads scoff at the idea of any political or RSS influence on the island, the fear of foreign influx (read Bangladeshi immigrants) has created paranoia among them for decades. A few of the Satras, however, have a different outlook on politics.
“We tend to be neutral about any political power at the helm in Assam. We have to work with the state government, be it the Congress, the BJP or the Asom Gana Parishad. We have a neutral approach toward politics. But with the new state government in power, we have seen some positive changes. We fear about influx of illegal immigrants. They tend to create an imbalance in the local demography of Assam. Their population is growing. They have more children than the local inhabitants. This is what we fear. Our local population has decreased because of them. Their influence hurts our identity, which we need to preserve at all cost. People in Majuli need a bridge that would connect them to the mainland, but the state government needs to exercise control and observe the flow of people into the island if the bridge is to be built in the near future,” Debananda Dev Goswami, a yuva sattradharikar of Auniati Satra, a 16th century monastery, told The Wire.
Janardhan Dev Goswami, the Sattradharikar of Uttar Kamalabari Sattra (who faced the ire of Assamese organisations who condemned his reported support for the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which proposes that people belonging to minority communities, namely Hindus, Jains, Christians, and Parsis from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan shall not be treated as illegal migrants) told this reporter that signage of Ram on trees do not relate to or are the same as ‘Ayodhya’s Ram’.
Last month, Goswami along with fellow members of Asom Sattra Mahasabha, the apex body of the Sattradharikars, led a delegation to Delhi and submitted a memorandum wherein they reportedly supported the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 at a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) hearing.
Country boats that ferry people in and out of the island with triangular saffron flags depicting the monkey god Hanuman and Sri Ram written in Hindi. Credit: Gaurav Das
As per reports of The Assam Tribune, the copy of the memorandum or representation which was submitted by Kusum Mahanta the Mahasabha’s general secretary to the JPC, stated “conferring citizenship to the Hindu population who have migrated to Assam from Bangladesh is very much necessary to save the country from Muslim demographic invasion, more particularly the State of Assam.”
“The Ram signage which is being referred to is not the one denoting Ram from Ayodhya. This Ram on tree trunks refers to as an address which has been put up to instil spiritual adherence. This has not been done under anyone’s influence. People should know the facts before they make any allegations of collusion with saffron ideology. For centuries we have adhered to the Ramayana, which is part of our history,” says Goswami.
Last month, during the protests over the Mahasabha’s alleged support over the proposed Bill, Akhil Gogoi, leader of the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and a vocal anti-RSS voice, told the local media that, “By submitting the memorandum in support of the proposed amendment, the Asom Sattra Mahasabha showed its anti-Assamese stand. This incident proved the alleged friendship of RSS and Mahasabha. Sattradharikars are the most respected persons in Assamese society. Now most of them have lost respect. We demand an apology.”
Talking to The Wire on RSS’s influence on the island, Gogoi blamed one particular Satradharikar who he said had been ‘hand-in-glove’ with the saffron organisation. Gogoi said, “It is not just Majuli, but many naam ghars (traditional Assamese Vaishnavite hymn houses) in Assam bear witness to RSS’s influence. Now bhajans are sung at the naam ghars, which was not the case earlier. From temples or traditional Assamese hymn houses, young boys and men are being given training and exercises fashioned in RSS style. One Satradharikar has ganged up with the RSS to exert its influence. Majuli is the seat of Assamese Vaishnavites, but now it seems that Ram has taken over Krishna.”
However, senior monks deny any saffron presence, but add that such signage was necessary as the influence of the missionaries on the island’s tribal communities was on the rise.
“We cannot say that it is RSS influence. Ram cannot be challenged. It is a ubiquitous presence. We feel signage have been put up for spiritual adherence rather than political, as of late, people are more involved in materialistic pursuits. The challenge for the Satras in Majuli is from the missionaries who are giving money to the poor to convert. This is our main challenge,” said Prabhat Burabhakat, a senior monk at Natun Kamalabari Satra.
However, it is not just tree trunks with Ram signage. Even the arterial country boats that ferry people in and out of the island have posts with triangular saffron flags fluttering with chunri motifs at its borders, depicting the monkey god Hanuman, and Sri Ram written in Hindi.
“I have been stationed here for some years. This is something new that I have noticed. Ever since the BJP’s coronation in Dispur, there has been a subtle RSS presence which is increasing. The people and religious heads would like to deny their presence, but RSS influence though visible, remains largely unseen,” said a source.
For cultural connoisseurs and ardent observers of Majuli since the past decade, the growing influence of RSS is among the ‘foreign’ aspects that are slowly invading the island.
A well-know filmmaker told The Wire on request of anonymity that, “When I visited the island some two decades ago, the seeping in of non-indigenous Muslim people had started. Then it was the missionaries who started to build churches. And now RSS wants to exert its influence. Majuli has always been the last bastion of the Assamese Vaishnavite cultural and spiritual sphere which is quite unique. But now even that is not immune to a completely different Hindu set of beliefs. It is upto the Satras to take up the matter and curtail any outside influence whether it is Hindu or non-Hindu.”
Gaurav Das is a Guwahati-based freelance journalist.