One year after Assam lost its pride, its voice, its strength, and its spine, the collective Assamese consciousness has become a single wounded, breathing entity, going through the motions of everyday life, disturbed and desperate for some kind of closure.
Ask anyone, and they’ll say it has been a year, yet it feels like only yesterday that his family, thirty-five million strong, lost him. As if an entire state and all its people have stood numb for twelve months, indifferent to the seasons that came and went, unable to register that time had moved at all.
It’s a heartbreaking sight, definitely not for the faint of heart, especially if one’s heart and soul belong to the land of the mighty Brahmaputra and its beautiful people.
A sea of bleeding hearts and brimming eyes; some sobbing frantically in overwhelming grief too large to hold, some whispering their hearts out to Zubeen Garg as if he could still hear, some crying out his songs with hearts split open and voices worn raw, praying that Zubeen Garg, somewhere beyond, hears their grief and comes home to the people who never stopped loving him.
Others blasted his music as they marched, rode or drove towards Zubeen Khetra. Grief moved in a convoy of lakhs and refused to arrive quietly.
People from every corner of Assam turned up in lakhs to light diyas on Zubeen Garg’s death anniversary and speak to him on the eve of Zubeen Divas, convinced that he is still there, travelling hundreds of kilometres in one more attempt at closure, the way they would for a loved one in their own family. No one found closure.
What they found instead was a collective realisation: that they are alone in their love for Zubeen Garg, alone in their grief for him, and hopeless in this struggle for justice, and the harsh truth that closure may be a dream long lost.
Politicians who roar lies like ‘Wherever the public goes, the Government follows’ never made it to Zubeen Khetra to light a diya, to pay their respects, or even to stand with their voters in grief. Not even to assure a grieving state that justice was on its way, even as a year passed with the ‘fast-track’ court no closer to delivering it.
The Assamese know justice delayed is justice denied. It is a feeling anyone would pick up on if they spent those three days grieving alongside their own people. The Government was not among them.
The ruling state BJP and its leaders lit diyas in programmes across the state, in devotion to a man in Gujarat who became Prime Minister from their party, who was absent from the entire discourse around the devastating Assam floods earlier this year. But Assam’s heartthrob, and the state’s collective grief, could not get them to stand with their own people.
Even the Pranab Doley and #SaveKaziranga protests saw more security personnel and police deployed than on September 19, when pretty much the whole of Assam gathered in Sonapur to mourn the loss of Zubeen Garg, pride of Assam, son to some, Zubeen Da to others, and God to many.
I would go so far as to say more security personnel are deployed to clear VIP convoys through Guwahati’s traffic than were present in Sonapur to mourn a man three and a half crore people called their own.
Grieving people from Dhubri, Nagaon, Lakhimpur, Majuli, Golaghat, and all over Assam had a harrowing time just getting to the memorial site, a cruel addition to a loss already too large to bear.
After travelling hundreds of kilometres from their hometowns to Guwahati, what awaited them was four to six hours of traffic just to reach the site, followed by exorbitant fares to commute to and from it; a site on the far outskirts of the city, where finding a vehicle, rented or local, is difficult even on an ordinary day.
Most of the people who travelled here over those three days were ordinary people from remote villages, who could ill afford such uncertain expenses. Thousands could be seen marching patiently from Jorabat to Sonapur and back, phone cameras held high, Zubeen Garg’s songs on their lips.
It took a few good, compassionate citizens devoted to Zubeen Garg in their own right to offer them food in the form of prasad. It was gut-wrenching to witness mourners whose eyes held nothing but sorrow, a sorrow so consuming it drowned out even their hunger and exhaustion.
But it was also a once-in-a-lifetime sight, one that filled the heart even as it broke it, watching them accept whatever came their way with no complaints, no impatience, only tremendous patience, and a quiet faith that the path to God is never meant to be easy. That is the beauty and the singularity of Assam, its people, and Zubeen Da’s fans.
Waiting for Justice for Zubeen
Once they somehow managed to reach Zubeen Khetra, the place where they believe they will still find their Zubeen Garg, what welcomed them was a temporary gate built of decorative arches, barricades, and cloth-lined structures, and an unfinished boundary wall.
A temporary stage, a mock Namghar, and a Guru Asan had been built in the days leading up to the three-day observance. A year on, the proposed master plan for a permanent Samadhi Kshetra, much like justice for Zubeen Garg, still looks like a distant dream, as many devout fans who’d managed to get here from across Assam observed.
Even though everyone agrees justice hasn’t been served and that justice delayed is justice denied, some are still holding on to faith in the system. Others have taken a more practical stance, abandoning any expectation of justice under the current government.
They expressed complete distrust in the ongoing investigation and in its willingness to deliver justice and punish the perpetrators. Some went further still, saying that if Zubeen Garg does not get justice, and the perpetrators do not get the punishment they deserve, they will not vote for the BJP government under Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma.
A young man from North Lakhimpur pointed out that Zubeen Garg’s musical renditions of centuries-old Assamese folk poems and songs performed a vital duty, connecting the current generation to its cultural roots, acting as a bridge across generations, and making young Assamese fall in love with their own rich past once again.
He represented a wide range of Assam’s youth when he said, “We don’t just follow Zubeen Da’s songs, we follow his life, his values, everything he stood for, his achievements, and the legacy he has left behind.”
He added that Zubeen Garg played a major role in his realising that he should stay aware of what was happening in Assam and take a stand — the very same stand Zubeen Garg himself would have taken.
He credits Zubeen Garg with inculcating a sense of awareness and public service among Assam’s citizens, and with leading by example when it came to taking a stand. Zubeen Da, he said, is the reason today’s youth have become aware and vocal against injustice.
That is why this pain is so hard to bear for crores of people. They had one person they would have followed to the end of the world, and he is gone. The only person truly worth following, because his entire life and being were devoted to helping, serving, and standing up for his people, not as a campaign promise, not even for votes, but simply because he loved his land and its people.
His talent was the main source of livelihood for hundreds, and beyond that, he fed and stood by hundreds more every single day he was alive. His famous words, ‘I don’t eat much, I feed others,’ were not mere words. They could be seen every day, at his residence and his studio, for as long as he lived.
Questions, Suspicions and a Deepening Distrust
A woman from Beltola, Guwahati, and others who had accompanied her, spoke of their unease that no one is allowed inside Baksa jail to access the accused, where they are being held.
They pointed to a gap in public knowledge: no way to know whether the newly built jail is holding the accused to the same standard as any other inmate, or accommodating the comforts of men who were once considered elite.
Without access, they said, there was no way to be certain the accused were being treated like ordinary prisoners, especially with reports, widely covered in the local press, of a court-ordered investigation into the Superintendent of Baksa Jail, after a document sent for an accused’s signature was allegedly returned altered from the one originally sent by the court.
Besides his extraordinary talent, he had a following of crores who would stand behind him no matter what. Such a towering figure is formidable. That brings us to those who believe justice has been delayed ever since politics entered the conversation.
Some sceptics point to what they call vested interests: businessmen they allege exploited his talent for personal gain throughout his life and continue to profit from the public’s grief, and political parties they suspect may use the issue for electoral mileage ahead of the next elections.
Whether or not these theories hold up, it’s worth remembering that suspicion of foul play, as opposed to accidental death, was dismissed by some as public overreaction in the very first days, before Assam Police added murder charges within three days of his death, months before the Chief Minister would tell the Assembly it was ‘plain and simple murder,’ and before the court itself came to register it as one.
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