21/05/2025
| By the 1960s, after passage of the Official Language Act (Assamese), communities such as the Misings and the Bodos began their fight to preserve their languages and culture and resist the imposition of the Devanagari or Assamese script. Indigenous communities from the plains, including the Adivasi communities, had not fought for a distinct identity and cultural protection prior to the 1970s—this largely emerged later, alongside the rise of Assamese nationalism. The indigenous communities from the hills, meanwhile, having struggled long and hard, had either formed separate states such as Meghalaya or had secured protections under the Constitution’s Sixth Schedule.
Read Manoranjan Pegu's notes on how Assam’s grand displays of culture ignore the issues of indigenous communities:
https://caravanmagazine.in/communities/assam-adivasi-tea-tribes-indigenous-ethnic-nationalism-bihu-jhumoir-culture-exoticisation
