Yasmin Saikia | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Professor and author |
Academic background | |
Education | Aligarh Muslim University |
Alma mater | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History |
Sub-discipline | South Asia |
Institutions | University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Arizona State University |
Notable works | Fragmented Memories:Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India Women,War,and the Making of Bangladesh:Remembering 1971 |
Yasmin Saikia is the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies and a professor of South Asian history at Arizona State University. She is the author of Fragmented Memories:Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India (2004) and Women,War,and the Making of Bangladesh:Remembering 1971 (2011).
Saikia was born in Assam,India. [1] [2] She completed a bachelor's and master's degree in history at Aligarh Muslim University in India,and then a master's degree in South Asian history and a Ph.D. in South Asian history with a focus on American and Southeast Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [3] [4]
Saikia's early academic career includes teaching history and conducting research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. [4] [1] She regularly returned to Guwahati to visit family and to conduct research in India,and spent a year in Pakistan conducting research. [4] In 2001,she traveled to Bangladesh to conduct research and began conducting interviews with women that would later form the foundation of her 2011 book Women,War,and the Making of Bangladesh:Remembering 1971. [5]
In 2010,she became the Hardt-Nickachos Endowed Chair in Peace Studies and a South Asian history professor at Arizona State University. [6] After she became a professor at ASU,she continued to travel to conduct research. [7] In 2022,she additionally became the co-director of the Center of Muslim Experience in the United States at Arizona State University. [8] [9]
Saikia is the author of several books,including In the Meadows of Gold:Telling Tales of the Swargadeos at the Crossroads of Assam (1997), [4] Fragmented Memories:Struggling to be Tai‐Ahom in India (2004),and Women,War,and the Making of Bangladesh. She has also co-edited various works,including collections intended to become a trilogy:Women and Peace in the Islamic World:Gender,Influence and Agency (2015) and People's Peace:Prospects for a Human Future (2019). [10] In 2022,she was appointed as editor for the Muslim South Asia 15-book series from Cambridge University Press. [11]
In a review of Fragmented Memories for The Journal of Asian Studies ,Jayeeta Sharma writes of how Saikia "posits an alternative view of the precolonial Ahom as a relatively open-status group whose membership came from a diverse set of local peoples participating in a warrior ruling ethos. Rather than an inherited bodily identity,it was a prestigious rank achieved by those who had made it into the king's favor. Later,the British intervention ethnicized the meaning of Ahom and laid the groundwork for the local invention of a Tai-Ahom identity." [12] In a review for The American Historical Review ,Sanjib Baruah describes the book as a "significant publication event" in the context of a lack of a "strong intellectual tradition in India of looking at local pasts in autonomous terms",and the limited number of available research visas. [2]
In a review for Human Rights Quarterly ,Elora Chowdhury and Devin Atallah describe Women,War,and the Making of Bangladesh as "groundbreaking" because it is one of the few scholarly works addressing the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971,as well as because of the book's emphasis on the experience of women during the war. [13] They also describe the book as "provocative because it debunks a number of national myths that have shaped the consciousness of the post-1971 nation of Bangladesh." [13] Hannah Sholder describes the book as "unique" in a review for the South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal and writes,"By bringing the experiences of Bangladeshi women from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds into the spotlight,Saikia not only challenges the often one-sided and nationalistic accounts of the war,but she also produces an alternative discourse that reveals an opportunity for reconciliation to heal the wounds of war which are still festering today among those who experienced the war or its aftereffects." [14]
Saikia is Muslim and a naturalized American citizen. [9]
The Ahom or Tai-Ahom is an ethnic group from the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The members of this group are admixed descendants of the Tai people who reached the Brahmaputra valley of Assam in 1228 and the local indigenous people who joined them over the course of history. Sukaphaa, the leader of the Tai group and his 9,000 followers established the Ahom kingdom, which controlled much of the Brahmaputra Valley in modern Assam until 1826.
Buranjis are a class of historical chronicles and manuscripts associated with the Ahom kingdom. There were written initially in the Ahom Language and later in the Assamese language as well. The Buranjis are an example of historical literature which is rare in India—they bear resemblance to Southeast Asian traditions of historical literature instead. The Buranjis are generally found in manuscript form, a number of these manuscripts have been compiled and published especially in the Assamese language.
The Pala dynasty of Kamarupa kingdom ruled from 900 CE. Like the Pala Empire of Bengal, the first ruler in this dynasty was elected, which probably explains the name of this dynasty "Pala". The Hindu orthodoxy drew their lineage from the earlier Varman dynasty and thus ultimately from Narakasura i.e. Bhauma dynasty. The dynasty is unrelated to the previous Varman and Mlecchna dynasties.
Ethnic groups in South Asia are ethnolinguistic groupings within the diverse populations of South Asia, including the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan is variously considered to be a part of both Central Asia and South Asia, which means Afghans are not always included among South Asians, but when they are, South Asia has a total population of about 2.04 billion.
Sukaphaa, also Siu-Ka-Pha, the first Ahom king in medieval Assam, was the founder of the Ahom kingdom and the architect of Assam. A prince of the Su/Tsu (Tiger) clan of the Mao-Shan sub-tribe originally from present-day Mong Mao, Yunnan Province, China, the kingdom he established in 1228 existed for nearly six hundred years and in the process unified the various ethnic groups of the region that left a deep impact on the region. In reverence to his position in Assam's history the honorific Chaolung is generally associated with his name.
The Assam Accord was a Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) signed between representatives of the Government of India and the leaders of the Assam Movement. It was signed in the presence of the then-Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi on 15 August 1985. Later, the Citizenship Act was amended for the first time the following year, in 1986. It followed a six-year agitation that started in 1979. Led by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), the protestors demanded the identification and deportation of all illegal foreigners – predominantly Bangladeshi immigrants. They feared that past and continuing large scale migration was overwhelming the native population, impacting their political rights, culture, language and land rights. The Assam Movement caused the estimated death of over 855 people. The movement ended with the signing of the Assam Accord.
Garhgaon is a historic town in Assam, India and served as the capital of the Ahom kingdom for many years. It was built by the Ahom king Suklenmung in 1540. It lies 13 km east of present-day Sivasagar town, headquarters of the Sivasagar district. The palace structures were made of stone and wood. In 1747 Pramatta Singha, son of Rudra Singha, constructed a brick wall of about 5 km in length surrounding the Garhgaon palace and the masonry gate leading to it.
The Al-Shams was a collaborationist paramilitary wing allied with several Islamist parties in East Pakistan, comprising both local Bengalis and Muhajirs. Alongside the Pakistan Army and Al-Badr, Al-Shams has been accused of participating in widespread atrocities against Bengali nationalists, civilians, and religious and ethnic minorities during the 1971 war. Following the war, the government of Bangladesh officially banned the group.
Habung is a historical region in present-day Lakhimpur district of Assam, India, although Tai-ahom claim it to be a part of present-day Dhemaji district. As per epigrahic records, Habung (Ha-vrnga-Vishaya) was a vishaya or province where Brahmins were settled by Ratna Pala of the Pala dynasty of Kamarupa in the 10th century.
The Assamese people are a socio-ethnic linguistic identity that has been described at various times as nationalistic or micro-nationalistic. This group is often associated with the Assamese language, the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, and Assamese people mostly live in the Brahmaputra Valley region of Assam, where they are native and constitute around 56% of the Valley's population. The use of the term precedes the name of the language or the people. It has also been used retrospectively to the people of Assam before the term "Assamese" came into use. They are an ethnically diverse group formed after centuries of assimilation of Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan and Tai populations, and constitute a tribal-caste continuum—though not all Assamese people are Hindus and ethnic Assamese Muslims numbering around 42 lakh (4,200,000) constitute a significant part of this identity. The total population of Assamese speakers in Assam is nearly 15.09 million which makes up 48.38% of the population of state according to the Language census of 2011.
The Chutia kingdom was a late medieval state that developed around Sadiya in present Assam and adjoining areas in Arunachal Pradesh. It extended over almost the entire region of present districts of Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, and some parts of Dibrugarh in Assam, as well as the plains and foothills of Arunachal Pradesh. The kingdom fell around the year 1524 to the Ahom Kingdom after a series of conflicts and the capital area ruled by the Chutia rulers became the administrative domain of the office of Sadia Khowa Gohain of the Ahom kingdom.
The Turungpeople or Tai Turung, are a numerically small Buddhist community in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. They speak their own Turung language.
During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, members of the Pakistani military and Razakar paramilitary force raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women and girls in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape. Most of the rape victims of the Pakistani Army and its allies were Hindu women. Some of these women died in captivity or committed suicide, while others moved from Bangladesh to India. Imams and Muslim religious leaders declared the women "war booty". The activists and leaders of Islamic parties are also accused to be involved in the rapes and abduction of women.
Moran (Morān) is an extinct Boro-Garo language which was spoken in Assam in Northeast India and related to Dimasa language. The census returned 78 speakers in 1901, 24 in 1911 and none in 1931, and the only source of this language exists in a 1904 article by P R Gurdon. The speakers of this language have shifted to the Assamese language. The name "Moran" reportedly means 'forest dweller'.
Bangladeshis in India are members of the Bangladesh diaspora who currently reside in India. The mass migration into India since Bangladesh independence has led to the creation of anti-foreigner movements, instances of mass violence and political tension between Bangladesh and India, but it has also created measurable economic benefits for both nations.
The All People's Party or Sarbadal was a political party in Assam, northeast India. The party was founded in Dibrugarh by Ahom elites on May 8, 1945. It united different groups that sought to challenge the Indian National Congress in elections. The All India Muslim League, the Tribal League and the Ahom Sabha took part in the founding of the party. The party sought to mobilise the Kachari, Muttock and Deuri communities, to compete against caste Hindus for political influence. To a large extent, the party represented tea garden labourers. During its initial period, the party demanded that the British colonial government should create a separate Ahom constituency. The party cooperated with the Muslim League, being united in their opposition against the Congress party.
Assamese Brahmins are the Brahmin community present in the Assamese society. There they promoted learning, Vedic religion, astrology, ayurveda and as well as imparting general vedic knowledge to the public. The Brahmins migrated to Assam from Videha (Mithila), Kannauj, Bengal and many other places.
Ahomisation was an assimilation process in the former Ahom kingdom of Assam by which the people from different ethnic groups in the region became a part of what is now considered as the Ahom population.
Hinduism is the dominant religion practised in the state of Assam. According to some scholars, it is home to some of the most complex and poorly understood traditions in Hinduism. People follow traditions belonging to Shaivism, Shaktism, Tantra, and an indigenous form of Vaishnavism called Ekasarana Dharma; taken together the practitioners constitute around 61% of the state population as per the 2011 Census. Hindus form a majority in 17 out of the 29 districts of Assam. By region, there is a significant diversity among the ethnic groups that profess the Hindu faith, traditions, and customs. As per as 2011 Census, In Brahmaputra valley of Assam, Hindus constitute 62% of the population, the majority being ethnic Assamese. In the autonomous Bodoland region of Assam, Hindus constitute 71.3% of the region's population, most being of the Bodo tribe. In the Barak valley region of southern Assam, Hindus constitute 50% of the region's population, most being ethnic Bengalis. The Hill Tribes of Assam, particularly the Karbi people of Karbi Anglong and Dimasa people of Dima Hasao, are mainly Animists.
Chaklong wedding, also known as Saklong wedding, is a traditional Ahom marriage system. It is still practiced by many Ahom people today.