Remembering the Glorious Days of Assamese-Medium Schools in Arunachal

Itanagar: I have always maintained that the word ‘education’ is a broad term. It is not just about reading books and accumulating knowledge. It is as vast as the ocean. The great patriotic saint of India, Swami Vivekananda, said, “Each soul is potentially divine.” He also said, “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.”

My father was a simple villager who had no formal education, but he was much more educated than me in many practical fields. In fact, his pragmatic knowledge about life was more useful to me than my bookish knowledge. The degree I earned after years of toil was no doubt instrumental in getting me a steady government job, but I cannot equate it with the amount of practical knowledge about life that I learned from my illiterate but highly-educated father.

Today though, I am saddened to observe the plummeting standards of education, especially around moral and ethical education, in the schools and colleges. The education which is being imparted today in our schools is examination-centric and doesn’t have much to do with the practical lessons of life. The students just want to pass their examinations, and the teachers also work only with the motive of seeing their students get through the examinations successfully.

About the teacher-taught relation, the lesser said the better. There is no love lost between the teachers and students these days. And it is steadily going from bad to worse – a profoundly worrying trend indeed. Many students in Arunachal Pradesh take great pride in the fact that they study in English-medium schools. Paradoxically, only a few of them eventually become well-versed in English. It is food for thought, really. During the Assamese-medium days in Arunachal, the students were not only well-versed in the Assamese language but were also more efficient in practical fields as co-curricular activities were compulsory.

I was fortunate to experience the wonder years of Assamese-medium education during my formative years. I am talking about the 1950s and the late 1960s, when the medium of instruction was the Assamese language in all the schools of Arunachal Pradesh (formerly North-Eastern Frontier Agency.) The teaching-learning process was totally different then, unlike what we see today. We literally treated the schools as temples of learning and our teachers, mostly Assamese, as gods. The relation we had with our teachers was sacrosanct and yet so cordial. We used to enjoy going to the school then, because the Assamese teachers created an ambience conducive to learning by engaging the students in gardening, cane work, games and sports, and cultural and literary activities besides the books.

During winter, the teachers would conduct the classes outside the school building, amidst the flowers and natural environs, which enabled us to enjoy the warm sunlight. I used to love those classes. The teachers loved us like their children. Though they were very strict at times, they importantly had that strong urge and determination to build our career. We were also very sincere in studies and literally burnt the midnight lamp.
Unlike in the English medium pattern of learning in the schools, the lessons and the poems during the Assamese-medium days were very interesting and meaningful, conveying moral lessons. I still remember some of the poems and titles of lessons in lower classes:

"Moromor ai kune muk tuli-tali korile dangor,
Mukhor mitha maate pahori bhagor,
Xukh xukh buli manuh bolia, nedekhe’,
Xukhor mukh, xukh bisarute
pai xonxarot dukhor upori dukh…"

(Who has raised me with so much love;
Who beckons me with so much care, forgetting fatigue
Mankind is running after happiness, can’t find it though;
In their perennial search for happiness, for a happy encounter
Reap only a heap of sadness in this world…)

Apart from these, ‘xur’, ‘Bordoisila’, ‘Xuwoni Amar Gaon’, ‘Ratipua’ etc, were so beautifully written and contained life lessons.

After my primary education, I moved to an English-medium school and thereafter college. As a child, I found those English rhymes – ‘Baba black sheep’, ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’ not at all appealing, as they hardly conveyed anything that I could relate to with my immediate reality.

I still have a lot of respect for those Assamese teachers who taught us with love. We so loved them in return. I recall taking turns to visit the teachers’ quarters in a group and spending the night there because, during those days, their quarters would be typically situated on the outskirts of the village, sometimes about 2-3 kms away. We would collect firewood and fetch water for our teacher, and also help with other chores, like cleaning utensils, cooking, etc.

Our teacher would tell us stories at night. There used to be a particular day in a month when all the students would contribute a bundle of dry firewood to the teacher. The idea behind it was to welcome the teachers into the village community, whereby the teachers would treat the villagers as their own, would participate in the community activities like hunting and fishing trips and festivals besides offering a hand at house construction, jungle clearance, and so on.

We had one Gohain sir, from Naharkatia in Assam, who was an accomplished swimmer. During one of the community fishing trips, it was he who caught the maximum fish to our delight. Another very popular teacher was Deori sir, who was an expert hunter. My villagers still fondly remember some other teachers too, like Mahanta sir, Sarma sir, Kalita sir, Borah baideo. They were so concerned about their students that they would visit their houses to inspect whether they were studying at home. They would also interact with their parents. The parents loved and respected them like one of their own. Such was the rapport they enjoyed. The Assamese teachers would sometimes take their students along with them when they went home during vacation. This would facilitate in giving the much needed exposure to the village students.

Those days, Assamese Bihu and Piriti songs were very popular among the young boys and girls of Arunachal. Some of them mastered those songs so well that even people in Assam were surprised when they heard them sing. The village youths would sing Assamese Piriti songs to woo their prospective lovers. Young boys who were well-versed in Assamese songs were very popular among the girls. The young boys and girls would gather at a particular place in the village to partake in Bihu dance, not only during the Bihu festival in Assam but otherwise as well.

Later, Assamese was introduced as the third language in the schools, and subsequently replaced by Sanskrit. I sincerely feel that Assamese should be the third language instead of Sanskrit, because Assamese would be useful for our students. Sanskrit is of not much use as a third language.

During my schooling days in Ramakrishna Mission School at Narottam Nagar in the state’s Tirap district, the third language was Sanskrit. We simply memorised some shlokas to pass the examination. In practical life, it was of no use. But Assamese would have helped us in improving our communication skills with the people of neighbouring Assam, where we often visit to shop, for medical treatment and higher studies. Assam being our next-door neighbour, Assamese is of immense use.

Literary luminaries from Arunachal Pradesh, like late Lummer Dai, who wrote the popular novels in Assamese, Pahare Xile Xile, Prithibir Hanhi, Kannya Mullya, etc, and Y.D. Thongchi, who also wrote the popular novel Sonam in Assamese besides other popular ones, are today household names in Assam. Their names are taken with great love and respect by the Assamese intelligentsia. Had Assamese been used as the third language in our schools, who knows, we may have produced more Dais and Thongchis to be read and admired in the neighbouring state.

In Tirap district, all the villages, especially in the lower belt, had a Namghar each, built under the aegis of Merbil Chaliha Bareghar Satra at Sasoni near Naharkatia in Assam.

The story of Narottam, who became a famous disciple of Sri Ram of the Satra, is very popular. Earlier known by the name of Lotha Khunbao, a Nocte chief from present Namsang village, Narottam (Nar-Uttam) was christened by his guru Sri Ram because he was highly impressed by the spiritual knowledge, devotion, discipline and overall personality of Lotha Khunbao. I had earlier written an exhaustive article on Narottam. The Noctes of Tirap district embraced Sankardeva’s Vaisnavism with the influence of the Gohains or Gorokhais from the Satra, which was later discontinued due to the lackadaisical attitude of the Mahantas and Gorokhais. They could not carry forward the wonderful effort made by their predecessors. It is a sad episode indeed.

However, having said this, I have the feeling that the Assamese intelligentsia in the past did not contribute enough to influence the tribes of Arunachal in terms of language, religion and culture. Although most of the tribes living on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra still use Assamese as the lingua franca, the tribes residing on the northern bank of the river use Hindi as the common language for communication.

Though the past cannot return, I derive a special feeling of immense satisfaction when I recall my association with my loving and respected Assamese teachers, who sacrificed so much to show us the light of knowledge. But for their guidance and selfless services, I would have been a villager now, toiling hard in the Jhum fields instead of writing this article.

Denhang Bosai is deputy director, Information and Public Relations, Arunachal Pradesh government, and can be reached at denhangbosai@yahoo.co.in.

This article originally appeared in the Arunachal Times and has been slightly edited for style and clarity.

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