One month after the Assam Assembly endorsed a decision taken earlier by the Tarun Gogoi government to change the name of the state from ‘Assam’ to ‘Asom’, a number of eminent personalities of the state — including noted musician and filmmaker Bhupen Hazarika — has asked the government to reverse its decision, saying the move was historically incorrect.Amid protests from Opposition AGP and CPI, the Assembly had endorsed the new name Asom requesting the Centre to effect necessary changes in the Constitution to make the ‘Asom’ official. Earlier, the state Cabinet had, on February 27 last year, decided that the state be better known as ‘Asom’ with Gogoi stating that noted litterateur Chabdra Prasad Saikia had suggested it.While Gogoi’s move had met with immediate opposition from various quarters, including student bodies, historians and scholars, the new campaign to retain the original ‘Assam’ spelling is being headed by Bhupen Hazarika and four other former presidents of the Asam Sahitya Sabha, the highest literary body of the state.“Assam is not a British legacy. This spelling or word has been in use since the 13th Century and it will be a grave historical blunder to change the spelling,” Hazarika, who himself is a former president of the Sabha, said. Other leading lights of Assamese literature and culture who have joined him are —Homen Bargohain, Lakshmi Nandan Bora, Birendra Nath Dutta and Nagen Saikia — all former presidents of Asam Sahitya Sabha, and also Jnanpith Award winner Indira Goswami.“The name Assam is also important for maintaining harmony among all sections of people in the state,” Bhupen Hazarika said. Indira Goswami, on the other hand, said the government’s decision was “entirely unwarranted and an undemocratic move”. Meanwhile, over 150 professionals living in different parts of the globe have made a joint appeal to CM Tarun Gogoi to rescind the Assembly resolution seeking to change the spelling of the state’s name. “The December 15 resolution was neither supported by any argument or reason, nor was a debate allowed despite requests from Opposition,” the professionals in their joint appeal to Gogoi said. “While there is clear historical evidence that the British did not introduce or coin the existing spelling, to dilute Assam’s international name recognition is entirely counter-productive,” the appeal added.
