GUWAHATI, March 12? Historians have neglected Assam, but history has not. Everybody knows about the Indus Valley Civilisation and the Gangetic civilisation, but the Brahmaputra Valley civilisation has hardly any mention in history books. Exhorting the historians of the country to project Assam and the North-east in the national perspective in terms of history, Governor Lt Gen (Retd) S K Sinha today said historians should be free from prejudice, passion and partiality. Inaugurating the national seminar on ?Sources of history of North-East India? organised by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) at the Vivekananda Kendra here today, Sri Sinha lamented that many stalwarts from the region were not getting due recognition outside the State. He said it was only recently that the contributions of Lachit Barphukan, the legendary Ahom general, and Gopinath Bardoloi, a statesman of the highest calibre, were highlighted in the national arena.
Ridiculing the militant outfit ULFA?s contention that Assam was never a part of India, Sri Sinha said such a line of thinking was distorted and factually incorrect? as it had now been established beyond any doubt that historically, culturally, geographically and emotionally, Assam had always remained an integral part of the country. About the problems in the writing of history, he said writing of history had been a pastime with the victors rather than the vanquished. Former Vice-Chancellor of Assam University, Sri JB Bhattacharjee, in his keynote address, said that the seminar was important for two reasons first,? to measure the depth and the breadth of the use of sources that were identified years ago, and secondly to share the information about the newly identified sources. He expressed the hope that the seminar might explore the possibility of alternative and supplementary data which could be helpful in filling the gaps in political, social and economic history of the pre-colonial period in the North-east. He said the sources on the modern period were so wide-ranging and varied that the real problem was of identifying and handling rather than the dearth of them.
Emphasising that as far as the North-east was concerned, non-conventional oral sources should be explored as alternative of supplementary to the conventional recorded sources, interaction with sister disciplines in social sciences like social anthropology, sociology and social linquistics for inter-disciplinary study of social forces and social development should be increased, he said, adding that tools and techniques of field research in those disciplines should also be used. The Chairman of ICAR, Sri MGS Narayanan, among others, also addressed the meeting.