Abstract
How was history read and written in early twentieth-century Assam? Was it strikingly different from contemporary Indian practices? This article investigates these issues while carrying out a biographical reconstruction of Assamese historian Suryya Kumar Bhuyan. Bhuyan’s ambivalence in choosing a paradigm for historical pursuit is clear. For instance, while he endeavoured to escape from the contemporary historical practices based on rationalist-positivist model, he also continued to use two parallel forms of understanding of past: history and literature.
While he meticulously invested his energy in the building of a modern archival repository of sources, he was equally interested in addressing the needs of two competing consumers of the past: his peers and the Assamese readers. This article talks about how Bhuyan, trained both in literature and historical studies, published extensively in both English and Assamese, wrote professional and popular history, built up a resourceful archive, and stood defiantly amidst the competing Western and Assamese practices of recounting the past.
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