Space and community between the local and the global: two examples from the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam

Abstract

The objective of this article is to situate the relation between the local and the global in the context of a specific region formation, namely the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam in India as a frontier. The article takes up two examples on the relation between space and community construct and how the relation forms part of the deeper relation between the local and the global in the Valley. The Brahmaputra Valley comprises the major area of the Indian state of Assam. Assam and its neighbouring areas are also referred to as ‘North East India’. The term came into use during the colonial period. It was used to refer to the British-Indian frontier which bordered on Bhutan, Tibet, China and Myanmar. In the first example of the article, the local–global relation is seen in terms of how the colonial-capitalism paradigm altered the pre-colonial socio-spatial relation, formulating and implementing new spatial and social classifications. The focus in the example is on the rearrangement of socio-spatial relations in the Valley as part of transforming a pre-colonial crossroads into a colonial frontier. In the second example, the relation between space and community construct is situated in popular responses to the above changes, and especially how international ideology like communism is appropriated to address the local specificity of frontier. The works of the cultural icon and peasant leader of the Valley, Bishnu Rabha, are discussed in detail. Through the interrelation between the two examples, the article tries to show how between the nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century the local specificity of the Valley as a frontier was possible precisely due to changes of state formation or ideology which drew on a global context. In other words, the relation between space and community construct in the Valley demonstrates how the coexistence of the local and the global was a necessary condition in its making as a frontier. Community constructs like ‘tribe’, ‘Assamese’ and ‘Ahom’ during the period formed part of this interrelation between the local and the global that comprised the Valley.