Dharmendra Nath

Principal, S. B. Deorah College, Guwahati, Assam

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@KingTunde_SZN 448869

[Nibir Deka @nibirdeka]

How Central Guwahati Changed And Why We Must Stop Blaming “Outsiders”

My grandfather, sometime in the 1950s, bought land in Central Guwahati from one Bhatti Babu, who local people say was among the biggest landowners in the city. Some even say Sarabbhati gets its name from him. He was the local dealer of liquor made in the area and had huge stretches of land, reportedly given to him during the British period. My grandfather also bought a piece of land in Fancy Bazar and set up a shop there. That shop still exists under our family, though barely. At one point, our family had a real economic stake in the heart of Fancy Bazar.

During the Assam Agitation, my grandfather was deeply moved by Prafulla Kumar Mahanta. He would collect money and resources for the student movement through the businessmen of Fancy Bazar. He used to call PK Mahanta “Mahapurush.” Even when the darker truths about Mahanta slowly began to emerge, my grandfather refused to believe them. He lived in denial. Looking back now, I sometimes feel that denial was not just his personal flaw. It was a symptom of something much larger in Assamese society.

Cut to the 21st century, my father moved the family to Dispur. Today, we are voters of the Dispur constituency. Our shop in Fancy Bazar is merely surviving, and none of us ever really wishes to return to that ancestral part of the city. The old property has been rented out to non-Assamese traders who now do business ironically in Fancy Bazar. That, in many ways, is the reality of Old Guwahati. The part of the city that was once the entry point for migrants into Guwahati and once held so much Assamese economic presence, is no longer aspirational to the next generation of Assamese families.

And that did not happen overnight. It happened because the reason people came to Guwahati changed. Once upon a time, migrants came here largely for business. But after the Assam Agitation, the Assamese middle class increasingly began to see government jobs as the highest form of security, prestige and power. Slowly, our collective obsession shifted from trade and enterprise to bureaucracy. The dream was no longer to build a business in the city. The dream became to secure a government post, enter the system, and occupy the machinery of the state. In many ways, filling the bureaucracy became the only socially respectable way to assert hegemony.

Meanwhile, commerce was quietly abandoned.

The same story repeats on my maternal side in Bharalumukh, where our family has roots linked to Rohini Kumar Choudhury, one of Assam’s tallest nationalist leaders. Today, most of those ancestral lands have been handed over to builders. Apartments stand where old homes and family legacies once did. The buyers are mostly from the business class, and yes, many of them are non-Assamese. Except for our ancestral home, much of that old world is gone.

The reason is not very complicated. Assamese families in Central Guwahati simply could not keep pace with the business class. They could not compete with communities that treated business not as an individual hustle but as a collective family project, where each generation protected and expanded what the previous one built. For many Assamese families, the easiest way to generate wealth and sustain status became monetising land. Sell the land. Rent the shop. Give the plot to a builder. Move out. Ask the children to study for APSC, bank exams, engineering or an MNC job in Bangalore. That became the new model of success.

I still remember buying sweets from Choudhury Sweets near Fatasil Ambari, an Assamese-owned sweet shop that was part of the memory of that old Guwahati. By the time I reached middle school, it was gone. And that story is not unique. The Assamese owned businesses in Panbazar from where I used to buy cakes and chocolates, are all gone! None of the uncles are chewing paanon the footpath anymore.

Many Assamese-owned shops across Central Guwahati were either sold off or rented out because the next generation simply did not care to take over. They had other aspirations. But not the kind that allowed us to retain a stake in the economic core of our own city.

And now, to hide from our own failures to remain relevant as a business community, the easiest thing for us to do is to blame the “Baniya” class. That has become our comfort zone. But the truth is far more uncomfortable. What we are seeing today is also the fallout of a short-sighted Assamese nationalism that taught us how to identify outsiders, but not how to build lasting economic power. It gave us slogans, sentiment and suspicion, but it did not build a strong entrepreneurial culture. It made many of us emotionally defensive and economically fragile.

As a student of Don Bosco, Panbazar, another institution rooted in Central Guwahati, I grew up with non-Assamese friends. Many of them came from families where business was protected like an inheritance and expanded like a duty. They worked together as a family unit. They have also created employment for Assamese youths and I myself have worked under them and learnt a lot about professionalism and work culture.

In our Assamese family setups, often the first thing we do after marriage is divide the household into another kitchen. More separation. More expenses. Less pooling of resources. Less collective planning. Less continuity.

This write-up is not to justify a non-Assamese person becoming the next MLA of Central Guwahati. That is not the point. The point is that if we are serious about understanding how Central Guwahati changed demographically, commercially and politically, then we must first have the courage to perform a postmortem on ourselves.

Because communities do not lose space only because others enter it. Sometimes, they lose space because their own next generation no longer wants to stay, build, compete and preserve what was once theirs.

And unless we are willing to confront that truth, we will remain stuck in the same victim complex, forever blaming the outsider for what was also, in no small measure, our own failure

[Dr.Medusa @ms_medusssa]

Who is Zubin Garg?
An Axomiya's tribute.

Akou ahibi dada.

[Gita Gopinath @GitaGopinath]

It’s been an incredible 7 years at the IMF. As I return to @HarvardEcon, I'll use these rich experiences to further research global challenges and help train the next generation of economists. My deepest appreciation to @IMFNews colleagues who made this journey so meaningful.

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@TansuYegen 100

[Erik Solheim @ErikSolheim]

The story of Jadav Payeng, the man who planted one tree every day for 37 years on Majuli Island, Assam Indiam🇮🇳.

He has now created a forest and wildlife reserve twice the size of Central Park in New York.

[Dr Poornima 🇮🇳 @PoornimaNimo]

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1st woman minister in 1937
Diplomat to Soviet Union
Diplomat to UK & Ireland
Diplomat to USA & Mexico
Diplomat to United Nations 💥💥💥🔥
Governor of Maharashtra.

Please RT so that more people are aware. 🙏🧡

[Tansu Yegen @TansuYegen]

This is absolutely insane..

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@himantabiswa will adjust the rest of the programme. Sir, kindly accept our invitation and provide us a date (any one of the mentioned) as per your convenience. Thank you.

With regards
Dr. D. Nath.

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@himantabiswa,
Honourable Sir, I am Dharmendra Nath, Principal of S. B. Deorah College, Guwahati. Assam College Principals' Council(ACPC) has decided to hold its Diamond Jubilee Biennial Conference in my College. Since its Diamond Jubilee all members want your gracious presence

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@himantabiswa Most of the GU semester examinations will be held in November and December. I have sent a formal letter to your office requesting any of the dates (either 28th or 29th or 30th December) as per your convenience. If you kindly confirm any of the dates mentioned we

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@TansuYegen 16

[Harsha Bhogle @bhogleharsha]

My generation benefitted immeasurably from the liberalisation programmes that Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh led. Those benefits transformed confidence levels and led to this brilliant, confident younger generation that is taking India beyond what we could have dreamt of. As in cricket, where you give a guard of honour to a rival on retirement, it is time for everyone to say thank you to Manmohan Singh for the transformation that the mid 90s brought about.

[Gita Gopinath @GitaGopinath]

My remarks to the Boao Forum in China on the economic outlook for Asia and the world here:

[The Figen @TheFigen_]

Zaouli is a traditional dance of the Guro people of central Ivory Coast.
One of the most difficult dances to perform.

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@atanubhuyan Because

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@cctvidiots CDs

[Dharmendra Nath @dharma12]

@TansuYegen 43

[Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis @DrLoupis]

Do you agree?🇮🇱

[Go Northeast @GoNorthEastIN]

Sangti valley: The hidden gems of Northeast ♥️😍