RAJBANSHI-KAMTAPURI - AN OLD LANGUAGE AND NOT A MERE DIALECT

RAJBANSHI-KAMTAPURI - AN OLD LANGUAGE AND NOT A MERE DIALECT

It hurts my feelings if someone says that Rajbanshi or Kamtapuri is mere a dialect a not a language. After painstaking work of almost ten years, I endeavoured to find out the truth about the language and penned it down in my book ‘Koch Rajbanshi Kamtapuri – The Truth Unveilled (Guwahati, 2007). To clear the doubts about this language, I wish to reproduce some relevant portions of the book as follows:

[ “…. It was not an easy task to ascertain the circumstances under which today’s North Bengal and its neighboring areas lost their pristine glory, which, otherwise was once a central hub for acculturation among various races in northeastern part of India. Their language that was once believed to be the lingua-franca of the entire Koch Empire is dying today due to non-recognition. It still holds good for the Rajbanshi people to take Bankim’s suggestion seriously and get onto the job of writing history lest Koch or Rajbanshis will perish. What needed is an endeavor to search, collect and put together all the available legendary stories, archaeological findings, historical facts already brought out by quite a few historians, works of research scholars and eminent personalities in this field and present them to the readers so that they can have a clear idea on the past of the people belonging to this community….”].

[“…Whether Rajbanshi or Kamtapuri is a language or simply a dialect of North Bengal is a big question widely discussed today. Unless a clear picture is given today, days are far off when this old language will be extinct forever. Therefore, an urgent need of going through the evolution of this language and its relation with Bengali and Assamese languages that being elaborately discussed in the book. In fact, reality of Kamta language being the forerunner of both aforesaid languages is being analysed in the book.

The lost glory: Questioning the origin of a language is generally not done because there is no practical use of it and it is as old as origin of mankind. But its development can be traced. So, it is not wise to ask when Rajbanshi Kamatapuri language originated. Is it a language or a mere a dialect? This question comes to every one’s mind when talking about Kamtapuri or Rajbanshi as such. But, certainly one can ask how this language developed. How this language was spoken at earlier stage, say prior to advent of Aryans, Guptas, Palas, Senas or Ahoms? To answer all these, we have to go back oriental days of Pundravardhan, Pragjyotishpur and Kamta-Kamrup. Probably, there were many local languages, which varied after every hundred miles or so. Then with the development of the civilisation, a common language ought to have developed. Such a language, which existed during ancient period in the vast Kamta-Kamrup areas, perhaps was the one similar to present day Kamta Rajbanshi, which is in its somewhat original form.

In Bengal, it is generally believed that Bengali is a mother tongue and the rest; even Assamese or any other local language took birth from Bengali. Assamese are not in a position to claim that their language is the original because it developed much later after the advent of Ahoms. Then, how Assamese language developed? Was there anything to do with Rajbanshi or Kamtapuri language, which existed from time immemorial? Which language the people spoke during the ancient and medieval period? These are the questions that need to be answered. Then one more question, pertinent to ask, is why earliest form of Bengali and Assamese has similarity with today’s spoken Rajbanshi Kamtapuri language? And, which language did Koch kings and their contemporary kings in adjacent kingdoms use for spoken as well as correspondences? Were not the very effective correspondences made between Koch king Nara Narayan and Ahom king Suklemung (Gargayan Raja) and then Chu-Kampha in mid-sixteenth century onwards, which were written Kamta-Kamrupi or Rajbanshi language and powerful language in prose style, the harbinger of modern Bengali or Assamese languages?

On the instructions of Darrang king, Samudra Narayan, descendant of king Parikshit Narayan son of Chilarai instructed renowned Sanskrit scholar wrote a historical chronicle ‘Darrang Banshabali’ during 1791-1806 in language, which can be termed as the last chronicle of Kamta language, after which it branched out in two similar yet, distinct ways i.e. Assamese and Bengali. Rajbanshi or Kamtapuri accent that still spoken in North Bengal and Bihar can be distinctly found in the aforesaid text. Just to quote one stanza no. 160:

                        “Bhaloreshe bhalo hoy Hin bongshe hin,

                        Dhoni bongshe dhoni hoy Dukhi bongshe din.

                        Chor bongshe chor hoy Sonto bongshe sonto,

                        Shrestho bongshe montri hoy Sarbo shastrot kohonto.”

   

            What is more astonishing is that while Kamata language is being dubbed simply as a dialect, spoken in a particular area by a particular community, Dr. T.C. Rastogir in ‘Maulana Azad Academy Journal (May 1-31) 1993 says otherwise- “The writings of the so called Paschim Bangla Bhasa or Asamiya Bhasa should be regarded as the writings of the Kamata language (Kamata Bhasa) in as much as it not dead but still living language of the Kamata region. The Kamata language is not Rajbanshi dialect of a caste or tribe. It is language of the people, for the region described above. The Kamata language should not be regarded as a mere dialect of Bengali or Assamese languages. It is the language in which the first vernacular writings of the region were attempted and may be called the root of the present Bengali and Assamese languages.”

What Hamilton had to say about the lingua franca prevalent during his period of survey (1808-1814)? : In his famous ‘Buchanan Manuscripts’, while giving out ‘An Account of Assam’ Hamilton unwittingly mentioned about Kamta-Rajbanshi language and wrote:-

“…The old priesthood however continue to be purohits (officiating priests) for the king in the worship of the family deity Chung, which is still followed. The Bengalese language also became more common, although it was not used on the coin, or in state affairs, until the time of Rudra, son of Gadadhar. Now it is the common language even in the court; and the original Assamese, commonly spoken in the reign of Aurangzeb, in all probability will be soon lost; and it is now a dead language, and is only studied by those who follow the old worship. I have deposited in the company’s library a vocabulary of the dialect of Bengalese now used in Assam”.

By referring to ‘the dialect of Bengalis now used in Assam’ did Hamilton mean it as the Rajbanshi or Kamta language as spoken in North Bengal and Bihar?

Also, Hamilton seemed to have always considered Kamta-Kamrupi or Rajbanshi language as a colloquial language of Bengal. It was evident from the fact when he wrote about intermarriages, intermixing and adoption of local languages by Ahoms on their arrival. As such, he wrote: -

“… It is generally admitted, that the Ahoms on their arrival had no women, but espoused those of the country; and the royal family have since had frequent intermarriages with the daughters of neighbouring princes; but since the introduction of caste the Ahoms confine their marriages to their own tribe. The whole have now adopted the language of Bengal, as their colloquial dialect, and have also relinquished the use of beef; but about a fourth part have yet no other priests than the Deodhaings. The remaining three fourths have adopted the religion of Hindus, chiefly as taught by the followers of Madhava Acarrya.”

 From his writings, while origin of Ahoms was clear, the reference to their adoption of colloquial language of Bengal was not clear, rather disastrous as it proved many years later, when Bengali was made the official language of Assam for ascertain period. For all probability, Hamilton referred to the language that intermixed people of Assamese people adopted was nothing new but already existed in entire Kamta-Kamrup area as today’s spoken Rajbanshi language is almost the same as Akhomiya or Assamese language.

When Hamilton carried out his survey, area of Koch kingdom under king Harendra Narayan was limited to Koch Behar and its adjoining areas, i.e. in north Bhutan on the next door, in west was the Baikunthapur (Siliguri sub-division in Darjeeling district), in south Rangpur (now Bangladesh) and in the east certain areas up to Goalpara in Assam.  Hamilton visited the area of Koch kingdom and found: -

“…the territory of the Vihar Raja, when I visited that country, was so much interposed between Bhotan and the Company’s possessions, that I had little opportunity of conversing with the subjects of the Deva Raja (King of Bhutan). Most of those whom I saw, were the Koch or Rajbansis, who occupy the low country conquered by the Bhoteas, who are mere Bengalese, and who know very little of the real people of Bhotan, or of their manners…”.

By his these words, it was clear that he considered the Koch or Rajbanshis of the area as Bengalese.

Linguistic relation with Bengali: It is generally believed that prose writing in India was absent until the Europeans; especially the English introduced it basically at Kolkata in 19^th century. Whether it was imposed for the benefit of theirs or not, the style was new and excepted by Bengali gentry of Kolkata overwhelmingly. Influence of the western culture was of much that Bengali literature developed rapidly. Literary scholar Sujit Mukherjee in his ‘Some Propositions on A Literary History of India’ published by Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore in 1981 wrote, ‘That the western impact should have been so severe upon our literary culture is not surprising. For anybody who went to college from say 1835 to at least a hundred years thereafter, there was no escape’. Regarding the content of college education of this period, the author narrated from the book ‘Policy and Conflict in India: the Reality and Perception of Education’ written by Aparna Sen, published by Longman Inc., New York in 1978(page 60), ‘there was an overemphasis on the study of languages and humanities… The syllabi of the older universities had a strong linguistic and classical bias. The curriculum for the first-year class in Hindu College, Calcutta in 1832, for instance, consisted of English literature, … history, mainly of Greece, Rome, England, and modern Europe; mathematics and geography. The Indian classical languages and, vernaculars were completely neglected’. 

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhay, who gave the impetus for unbelievable development of Bengali language by his style in prose writing, earned his name as the Scott of Bengal. Similarly, Rabindra Nath Tagore not only won the Nobel Prize for his poetry and songs also, called as the Shelly of India. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay followed by some more writers further emboldened Bengali language. British ‘Raj’ was undoubtedly was the blessing in disguise for Bengali, for which today this language is one of the best language as far as sweetness is concerned.

However, Edward L. Dimock in h is book ‘The Literature of India: An Introduction, University of Chicago press, 1975, p.27, had to say it differently, “…Prose had existed in India before the coming of the British, for purposes of disquisition, folk narrative, story and record, but under the influence of the British it came to be written with purely literary purpose.”

            Are these above stated writings of the great scholars wrong? or motivated? or written for their personal gain? Whatever be the reasons, these facts are to be substantiated with sufficient proofs. If one ponders over such thoughts, one gets entangled with too many  examples to be certain to believe the unbelievable.  First compare the case for words of oldest songs and folklore of Kamata with the writings of Bengal’s old literature ‘Charyapad, ‘Vidyapati’, ‘Dwija Chandidas’, ‘Bara Chandidas’. Similarity between them is unbelievable. If that were the case, then did Kamata language exist in early medieval period or before that? While, there could be hardly any confusion to it’s answer as far as Assamese language is concerned, as we have already got it, answer is still eluding as far as Bengali language is concerned.

According to scholar Shri Dharmanarayan Barma (A step to Kamata Bihari Language), Bengali prose had its roots in Kamata language. He wrote, “This language (Kamatapuri), which dates back it’s origin from the Charyapada between 8^th and 12^th century was the administrative and educational medium in the reign of Kamtapur kings – from the 13^th century down to the 19^th century. The letter of Maharaja Nara Narayan written in 1555 A.D. to the Ahom king Chu-Kampha (Swargadev) represents well the Kamtapuri language. If this be taken as the first specimen of Bengali prose literature as held by the Calcutta University, then confusion arises that Bengali prose literature generated from the womb of Kamtapuri language.”

Linguistic relation with Assamese: Look wise; Rajbanshis have more similarity with Assamese and Manipuris than mainstream caste Hindu Bengalis and Biharis. Assam derived its name from Ahoms, who came and invaded the land of Kamta-Kamrup in thirteenth century and got intermixed with ethnic people. Thus, traditionally and linguistically Rajbanshis have more affinity with Assamese people. Language wise also, prior to advent of Ahoms the language was called Kamrupi or Kamtapuri and it is only after subsequent creation of Assam state the name of language changed to Assamese.

Is the case to Assamese language similar? Going by the history, answer could be in affirmative. Ahoms, when came had their own language, which was Ahom of Chinese-Thai origin. Initially, their chronicles called Burnaji to record events relating to political, social, economic and cultural life were written in Ahom language.  Ahoms gradually started accepting local language, which was probably Kamtapuri and an intermixed language was evolved that came to be known as Assamese. The Ahoms were bilingual up to 16^th century.  The practice of writing Buranji in Assamese began in 17^th century when this language was accepted as an additional court language by the Ahom kings.

Now, let us study what had actually happened in case of imposition of Bengali as official language in Assam in the beginning of British Raj in Assam. Soon after conclusion of Yandabu agreement in 1826, the British company began consolidating their power in Assam. This part of northeastern region formed a part of Bengal province of British India, which was done for their administrative convenience. As quite a few officials both British and the natives from Bengal hardly knew the local language prevalent in Assam during the period, the company introduced Bengali as the official language for use in schools and courts of law in Assam in 1837. This language remained as an official language for 34 years till resentment brewed among the ethnic people. Also, in 1843, when an American team of Baptist Mission arrived in upper Assam for propagation of Christianity, they found it difficult to converse with the local populace, who spoke Assamese. This missionary people took out a monthly journal ‘Arunodai’ published from Sivsagar. This journal helped to develop Assmaese language. During this period, Anandavam Dhekiyal (1828-1859) took the imitative to put forward the demand for recognition of Assamese language through his articles and books published in the journal. Ultimately, in 1871, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, Sir George Campbell replaced Bengali with Assamese as the official language of Assam. However, Bengali remained official language for all erstwhile kingdoms of northern districts of Company’s Bengal province, thus the name came as North Bengal.        

Eminent historian Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee in his work, “The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language” (1926) Part-I, estimated during pre-Christian era, communities such as Mech, Koch and Kachari of larger Bodo group of people belonging to Tibetan-Burmese origin of languages came to settle in Assam, East and North Bengal. They made their settlements largely in the Brahmaputra valley and on the banks of river Karatoya, which came to be known as Pragjyotishpur and Pundra respectively. This northern part of Bengal province was the last to be ‘Aryanised’ in India as we discussed it in earlier chapter. The earliest literary work of Aryans-Rigveda was silent over mentioning Bengal as such. Mention of ‘Pundras’ is made in the Aryan literary work ‘Aitareya Brahmana’ and such another ‘Vangas’, who can be identified to have been the inhabitants of the areas of erstwhile Bengal province in the north and north east of the river Ganga.

However, Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji’s views on Aryanisation of Bengali highly appeared to be biased to many non-Bengali Scholars like Bisweswar Hazarika, who in his article ‘On the Origin of the Assamese Language: A Note’ published by Dr. R.D. Choudhury on behalf of Kamarupa Anusadhana Samiti (Assam Research Society, Guwahati:Assam) in their Platinum Jubilee commemorating Volume in January 1992, took an exception of Dr. Chatterji’s emphasis on Bengali language overshadowing Assamese. It is pertinent to relate Assamese language with Kamta or Koch-Rajbanshi or Rajbanshi language of today to reach a consensus for larger interest of the people of this generation.

Hazarika contested the views of Dr. Chatterji on the advent of Aryans, which according to Dr. Chatterji was that without progressing logically to the east through North Bengal took a turn southwards taking a circuitous route from Videha (Mithila), Anga (Midland Bihar) and then to Radha (Jharkhand-South Bengal), Vanga, Barendra and then, taking a ‘U’ turn moved to Barendra or Pundravardhan (Northern Bangladesh), then moved to North Bengal and finally made a headway to Brahmaputra valley (Assam). Hazarika wrote, ‘Dr. Chatterji has shown that the Magadhi Prakrit and Apabhramsa has ignored the natural short route (through Northern Bihar-North Bengal) to Kamrup and has traveled by an unconvincingly a circuitous route only to cover all the present day Bengali-speaking areas before arriving here (Kamrup in Assam). Such kind of ludicrous conjecture is unbecoming of a scholar like Dr. Chatterji.’ (page 98)

 While majority people of North Bihar i.e. districts of Purnia and Kishanganj speak Rajbanshi or ‘Deshi’ language similar to the Hindu Rajbanshis and Muslims of North Bengal, who form the single largest majority in the area, it was illogical to deduce that Aryans, after having mixing their culture in Mithila in North Bihar area went back slightly only to turn towards south. According to B. Hazarika, Dr. Chatterji has contradicted his own theory by expressing doubts over his own views. The fact could be that whole of the eastern part of India bordering from Koshi river in North Bihar running down southwards up to Ganga river and touching Bay of Bengal was out of the pale of Aryans advent till 320 B.C. Aryans could only progress further from Videha (Mithila) to east when the legendary kingdoms of Pragjyotishpur and Pundravardhan fell apart to disintegrate into smaller kingdoms like, Anga, Radha, Vanga, Barendra, Kamta-Kamarupa and other smaller kingdoms. Moreover, as discussed earlier chapter, in Bandhyana Dharmasutra (4^th century B.C.), while it was said any person (Aryan) proceeding to Pundra and Vanga had to undergo penance after he returned, it was not so for Kamrup-Pragjyotishpur (North Bengal-Brahmaputra valley of Assam) with whom most probably Aryans had established contact earlier than Pundra and Vanga.

Prior to arrival of the Aryan culture, most probably different languages or a common language mixed of Tibeto-Burman, Austral-Asiatic and Dravidian languages was spoken in the plains and semi-hilly terrains of northeastern part of India. Tibeto-Burman or Indo-Tibetan scripts were probably used. On advent of Aryan culture during pre-Vedic era, process of acculturation began, which continued till early Christian era. Aryanised or ‘Sanskritised’ meaning ‘Civilised’ language better known as ‘Magadhi’ was accepted by the population of Pundravardhan and Pragjyotish. A kind of cultural fusion between the non-Aryan Mongoloid-Dravidian aboriginal population and the ingress of Aryan culture took place in the plains of entire northeastern region of India. Finally, Magadhi Prakrit became prevalent in eastern Indian subcontinent. It's various Apabhramsa dialects made ingress further into east and southern regions as Indo-Aryan or Indo-European languages. It got divided into three distinct branches and different names in the subcontinent: -

i)      Bongo, Samatata and further East (South Bengal and Bangladesh) - Bengali,

ii)    Anga and Kalinga (South-West Bengal and Orissa) – Oriya and,

iii)  Pundra, Barendra and Kamrup (North Bengal, Eastern Bihar and Assam)

     - Kamrupi, Kamta Behari or Rajbanshi and later, Assamese.

    According to Bisweswar Hazarika Aryan language of Anga i.e.Magadhi ‘Prakrit’ and ‘Apabhramsa’ migrated directly from Videha (Mithila) and Anga to Northern Bihar and North Bengal, which in that period of pre-Christian era formed part of Kamarupa or Pragjyotishpur. It was unlikely that Aryan culture could not cross over the river Ganga and instead it took a southward turn to Radha and also it was not so that wave of Aryan language from Videha joining forces with Magadhi jointly traveled to Vanga and thereafter crossing Barendra reached North Bengal; after that only it traveled to Assam. What Hazarika for contested in favour of the theory that Aryans had established a link with Brahmaputra valley much earlier than South Bengal has a taker in the belief that present day Assamese people of ‘Kalita’ community, were the earliest Aryan settlers in Brahmaputra valley. To link with, this particular community in Assam has the closest social affinity with none other than the Rajbanshi community people.                    

In Northern part of erstwhile Bengal province (Bogra district of Bangladesh), some evidence is available of the prevalence of writing in the time of king Ashok, the great. During second century BC the people of these areas knew Prakrit and used Brahmi script. People were well settled and learnt Sanskrit. For a century from 432-433 AD we notice a series old land sale documents recorded on copper plates in Pundravardhanabhukti, the area that covered the whole of Northern Bengal province, most of which now falls in Bangladesh. Formative phase of Kamata actually ranged from 4^th to 7^th century AD. During this period, writing in Sanskrit developed along with the spread of civilization under the rule of the Gupta Empire. During this time, Buddhism also took a firm root in the area followed by Jainism. The confluence of different languages of followers of different faiths culminated into amalgamation of Sanskrit, Prakrit and spoken local languages that evolved into a distinct language with distinct script, which was followed by the earlier Kamrup kings and later Koch and Ahom kings.

The ‘Charya padas’ written by the Buddhist saints, the earliest available literary sources in Bengal bear the testimony of this earlier language of northern Bengal. While this language remained almost unchanged in undeveloped areas of Kamata as known as Rajbanshi or Kamta Bihari, it subsequently evolved into different languages, most prominent being Bengali closely followed by Assamese.

Evolution of Kamta-Rajbanshi Language: Can we trace the evolution this way? Rajbanshi language is mainly derived from Sanskrit. As we go towards west in Bihar from North Bengal Maithili element is more profound and while towards east in Asom, influence of Tai Ahom influence is more prominent; towards south in Bongo or Bangladesh Bengali influence is profound. Prior to the advent of the Ahoms in thirteenth century, Kamata-Kamrupi language was the lingua franca in the entire region of this part of India. Even, the reach of this language appeared to have far off places deep into western India. Except south Indian languages - Telegu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada, all other Indian languages do have some distinct linkages, which speak for itself that Rajbanshi-Kamata language might not simply be a dialect of any particular region.  This language has many similarities in Gujrati and Marathi languages. For an example, we can quote a word- ‘Aayi’ meaning mother that is still fondly used to address a mother by the rustic Rajbanshi in Kamata area as well as by a Marathi people of Maharastra in the western India.  This is evident from the fact that appearance wise Gujrati and Marathi have much similarity with the Rajbanshis. Distorted word ‘Babahe’ or on short ‘Bahey’ in Rajbanshi has similarity in Punjabi word  ‘Wahe’, meaning showing reverence to the great soul. “Wahe Guruji  ka Khalsa, Wahe Guruji ki fateh” (Khalsa hails the great Guru, who blesses with victory) is a sacred chanting of the Sikh people in every sphere of their daily lives. ‘Bhat’ (rice) is a common word used by Kashmiris as well as whole of erstwhile Kamata areas. All languages of hilly areas have some distinct similarities. From this count, it may be deduced that India was mostly inhabited by indigenous people of Mongoloid and Negroid stock people prior to advent of Aryans and when the powerful Aryans made ingress into Indian sub-continent, defeated indigenous Indians took refuge in the hills. In this, it would be appropriate, if we could exclude the people of Poundra and Pragjyotishpur, who inhabited in inhospitable areas of northeastern part of India and southern part of India, where Aryans reached much later. Therefore, can we say that the lingua franca existed in pre-Aryan India has anything to do with Rajbanshi-Kamta language? This needs thorough research.

How did the word- Bengal originate? Did it exist prior to the advent of Aryans or for that matter during the ancient period? When we talk about evolution of Bengal or Bangladesh, the truth could be different. In most probability, it was the word ‘Vanga’ that existed south of Kamata and west of Samatata that largely now is covered in Bangladesh having its heartland at present day Dacca. It was a dreamland of the Europeans, who wanted to reach via Kolkata (Kolkata). It was the English people, who called the area ‘All Banga’ or ‘Banga – all’ meaning the whole of Vanga, Samatata and Kamata areas that alter took the shape of Bengal. Subsequently, it covered larger areas including whole of south Bengal, north Bengal, present day Bangladesh, parts of Bihar, Orissa, Nepal, Bhutan and some parts of north eastern states. South Bengal, especially the areas of Murshidabad, Navadwip Calcutta, Navadwip, Hoogly and Midnapore corridor was much better places for trade and commerce that favoured by the English people and the area developed much faster to flourish. People of this corridor were good looking, simple and spoke a sweet local language that slightly varied from old Kamata language. With the socio-economic development of south Bengal, this language began shedding rustic words and accent of old language and abreast new form of language that came to be known as ‘Banglabhasha’ or Bengali.

The famous Kamrup king Bhaskarvarman, who is believed to be the first Kamta-Kamrup king, used Kamta as his state language. Was it true? If so, can we say that this is not a language but mere a dialect of this part of the country? It is an established truth that Sanskrit overwhelmed India due to its sheer powerful script, scientifically designed grammar and its prevailing literature, which were much developed then in comparison to lingua franca then prevailing in India. Then, of course, Aryans were in commanding position to impose Sanskrit upon the indigenous Indians. Sanskrit used to be the official language of about a half a dozen states in Bengal province during middle of 5^th century AD to middle of 7^th century AD.

Undoubtedly, Sanskrit played a vital role in developing the local language that probably resembled Rajbanshi-Kamta language, in south Bengal and in Samatata area (Bangladesh), the areas, which were outside the Kamta-Kamrup Empire. This language came to lime light only when it drew its sweetness brought all the way from semi-hilly people of Karnataka of south India by the ‘Sena’, kings, who made Bengal historically great. We do not find any ttrace of Bengali literature in Bengal up to the rreign of Sena kings whose ancestors hailed from Coorg areas of Karnataka. During Sena rule, some Sanskrit and Bengali works were written. Sena king Ballala Sena who was a scholar himself wrote ‘Smritis’ – Danasagara and Adbhutasagara. Their contributions towards development of Bengali literature were undoubtedly the greatest.  A language, sweetest of all, most heart rendering that can ever be expressed in words and every one’s favourite – Bengali that evolved from the womb of Kamta-Kamrup, nurtured by Sanskrit, perfumed in sandalwood fragrance of Coorgi hills brought by Sena kings and spoken by Aryanised people of Vanga, Samatata and south of the mighty river Ganga areas, finally became a state language of Bengal province leaving far behind it’s original form.

Dr. Ajay Chakraborty in his book, “Litterateur in Kamata Koch Behar Rajdarbar” wrote, ‘ As regards, the language of the literatures, written in Kamata Koch Behar Rajdarbar, especially from the 14^th to 16^th century, were written in Kamrupi dialect. At that time, the Bengali language and the Assamese languages had not taken definite shape. These two languages have taken definite shape from 18^th century”. By saying so, Dr. Ajay Chakraborty has indicated that both the modern Bengali and Assamese languages took shape out of Kamata language. In this regard, Dr. T.C. Rastogi was more blunt in saying the truth in Maulana Azad Academy Journal, Lucknow (May 1-31, 1993) – “the writings of the so called Paschim Bangla Bhasa (Bengali) or Asamiya Bhasa (Assamese) should be regarded as the writings of the Kamata language (Rajbanshi-Kamata) in as much as it not dead but still living language of the Kamata region. The Kamata language is not Rajbanshi dialect of a caste or tribe. It is language of the people, for the region described above. The Kamata language should not be regarded as a mere dialect of Bengali or Assamese language. It is language in which the first vernacular writings of the region were attempted and may be called the root of the present Bengali and Assamese languages."

            According to a recent research work carried out an Australian scholar, Mr. Mathew W.S. Toulmin, Kamta or Rajbanshi language belonged to Indo-Aryan group of languages. According to Dr. Ichhamuddin Sarkar, Reader in the History department of North Bengal University, under whose guidance the research scholar worked, Mathew traveled extensively deep into the Rajbanshi dominated rural areas of North Bengal and mingled with them and stayed with them under trying conditions to find out the roots of their language. He submitted his thesis to the University titled ‘Reconstructing Linguistic History in a Dialect Continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla Subgroup of Indo-Aryan’ in May 2006.  Hope the thesis sees the light of publication as book so that people get to know something great about this language.

However, we should not jump to a conclusion as to prove greatness or worthlessness of this language, rather should read what Madhav M. Deshpande, Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A. wrote in his essay titled,  ‘Aryan Origins: Brief History of Linguistic Arguments’ published in a book titled, ‘India: Historical Beginnings and the Concept of Aryan’, pp 146-147, “…I would like to conclude this extensive survey of the history of the linguistic arguments by saying that historical linguistic research, like any other project of historical reconstruction, is always going to remain a work-in-progress. … What we can expect from the on-going research is an open-ended approach to continually seeking new methods, data, but not an axiomatic commitment to predetermined conclusions.”

Lastly, it is pertinent to mention a bitter aspect as how people neglect very own mother tongue Kamta or Rajbanshi; instead try to emulate the others. Such a quagmire in which Rajbanshis live in or the precarious situation they have created is proven during census; call it ignorance or negligence towards own mother tongue. During census, these very people write their mother tongue as Bengali in North Bengal, Assamese in Assam, Hindi (or Bihari) in Bihar and so forth resulting further erosion to Kamta or Rajbanshi language.  As said earlier the educated or the elite groups of Rajbanshis generally avoid speaking this language considering it too rustic to speak in a social gathering. Reasons for all these aberrations in erratic behaviour of Rajbanshis need to be addressed; otherwise there is no hope for lasting peace in the whole region and extinction of this community appears to be certain...].

In view of what is stated in my writings as reproduced above, it is evident that Rajbanshi or Kamtapuri is not a mere dialect but an age-old and full-fledged language. It rightly deserves to be given constitutional recognition and placed in the eighth schedule of the Constitution of India.

On trip to Jaipur                                                                                         Capt. Nalini Ranjan Ray

Date: 22.08.2013