Much academic work has been done to explain ‘invisibilisation’ as a social conditioning to maintain the hegemony of the powerful. Like, the above definition provided by the esteemed university of global standing remains indifferent to casteism—the caste system that exists in India and among the Indians, even when they settle elsewhere outside India. Carrying it as a badge of pride, as “Indianness,” is becoming true to the evolving relationship of Northeast India. Especially, in the case of Assam, it leaves no room to breathe for “ex-untouchables” – the Dalits in the region.
Unlike the adjacent state of Bengal, which celebrates the discourse of “castelessness”, one can easily feel that the denial holds some kind of reformation ramification in history. In the case of Assam, it very conveniently shifts that into a mystic land of all righteousness.
You can hear the ringing of public discourse: “we don’t have a caste system here,” “it is not like any U.P or Bihar (Hindi belts),” or “it’s not rigid like mainland India.” But the point is, if extreme violence can define the caste system, it is again the mentality of the extreme privileges that decides upon “merit” in other scenarios.
The scale of favouritism and discrimination goes hand-in-hand in everyday life, and discrimination cannot always be placed in a universal term. It has its context, mode of action, and functionality to be precise.
To prove it is even correct, I want to bring recent developments in the state of Assam, where the government promised to establish Ambedkar Bhawan (54 Ambedkar Bhawan tenders in Assam 2025).
As revealed by the CM of Assam and the State Public Relations on 7 February 2025, they not only promised to build, but also stated, “A life-size statue of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkarji, the architect of our Constitution, will be installed near the entrance by 15th August 2025.” The statement assures completing the task in six months – a rare thing in Assam to believe to be true in reality!
As a Dalit in Assam, I doubt the intention of such a statement holds any sincerity for the historically marginalised community – the Scheduled Castes. Can it bring any good to us, and as an Ambedkarite, I question whether the intention has any correct measures to be an inclusive project for the whole Assamese society to follow!
Though I see the importance of building a culture of introducing Ambedkar, which no politics or regime in the present time can ignore. But for how long must we be adjusting to the limitation of governmentality to use Ambedkar in a tokenistic measure?
As I experienced in my recent visit to an Ambedkar Bhawan, in Uzanbazar, built in the heart of Guwahati, the capital city of Assam—the first glimpse of the building from a distance gave me a spark in my eye, but in a flash of a second turned into a dark sight of disappointment when I moved towards the building.
I noticed a lump of waste near the Bhawan’s gate, which blocks the route. One of my Ambedkarite friends who accompanied me that day decided to choose another route (by lane) to reach the Bhawan because of its poor condition.
It was quite visible from the site that the locality is of Dalit households, who are given no importance in having a proper, clean road. Even more shocking to notice, we could see completely tidy blocks when walking through the long route to reach the Bhawan.
Unlike the places occupied by the elites of Assam, no one seems to ensure that the place occupied by the Dalit community deserves to be clean. Even though one can argue that Guwahati as a city is not well-planned, and even without proper drainage facilities. Often, the blame is thrown upon its flood-prone conditions.
Or one can even happily contend that the dwellers in those areas are not known for cleanliness and do not take any responsibility for maintaining the area clean. One will be hard-pressed to dismiss the role and maintenance of the Municipal Corporation, in the authorial position, who does keep its duty of cleaning regularly in places which are occupied by the elites of the town.
Similarly, no one is bothered by the omission of the historically marginalised communities in Assamese caste society. The presence of SCs is just dismissed by various forces of dominant culture, highlighting the nationalism vs sub-nationalism, providing only an acute sense of regionalism.
Leaving any further engagement with the question of whether Dalits can have a homeland when they are placed in those discourses as surplus citizens?
The point to connect here is that places like Ambedkar Bhawan are just not a place to make a caste certificate; it is an additive work among many other ideas to build a space for Dalits, whom they call their own!
The idea of such places is to build a library, a community hall, a recreation centre, a teaching-learning centre, which are the basis for any society to communicate at a day-to-day level and a place to go for future intervention with the world outside.
Such spaces hold a unique meaning of education, breaking from the traditional caste occupation and mentality of inferiority to prepare youth of the community with modern education and constitutional rights as a citizen.
The right was fought for even by Babasaheb himself when he framed the Indian Constitution, and his life mission was to provide measures to annihilate caste, focusing on the socio-political democratisation of the country to abide by the Independent India.
No one can deny the unequal distribution of resources, and the inhuman division of labourers continues in a caste society in India.
To fight against this, people from the marginalised society often take shelter in the community spaces, which is also the beauty of human society to co-exist—to share resources. But when I see the poor condition of Ambedkar Bhawan, it raises a doubt about how the government of Assam can promise to build an Ambedkar statue when they were not bothered by the existing places which required urgent care and attention?
The process of invisibilising Dalits in Assam has been done in different capacities. One can easily see the gap between what Dr. Ambedkar insisted that Dalits should follow—“Educate, Agitate, and Organise”—and the distancing of knowing the history of “ex-untouchable” in Assam.
One can easily argue that no community or a sense of (sub)nationalism can exist without the history of its people, and modern historians are even trying to challenge the written history. But why is it that no records of ‘agitation’ are found in the literature of Assam history? I am not arguing the complete absence of such history, but if it is not there in the popular understanding of (hi)story, then one needs to understand who is occupying such sphere?
Even the most popular Dalits of Assam, figures like Bhupen Hazarika—who is a singer-writer—and Chandra Prabha Saikiani—who is a writer-reformer—worked in their capacity to bring a just society. The former is grounded towards a humanitarian cause, even at the cost of revolution. His immortal songs and tunes could rightfully address the pain of a society that is often ignored and never acknowledged! Whereas the latter is the unique blend of creativity and force to challenge the notion of Brahminical patriarchy through her work and life.
The idea is not simply to linger over their work, but the life they lived, which created them, is something I am interested in. Like the promise made by the Government of Assam, many scholars and Savarna artists created their prosperous careers, happily ignoring the social position of both Hazarika and Saikiani.
The overwhelming visibility of regionalism in politics, culture, and religion in Assam is hiding the hegemony of the few—those who occupy the media houses, publishing houses, clubs and centres—resulting in building mainstream narratives of Indianness. The politics which once said to challenge the hegemony of Indian culture.
But, as most theories in academia are produced with the failed attempt to connect with the root cause of India’s backwardness, the mainstream politics is taking the leverage of that gap, flagging the issue of “development in Northeast India” against its most marginalised section of society with much chaos.
Views expressed are that of the author and do not reflect EastMojo’s stance on this or any other issue.
Also Read: An Ambedkarite book stall showed us caste is alive in Assam: But there’s hope
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