What Does It Mean to Be Assamese in 2025?

Being Assamese in 2025 feels like carrying a glass lantern through a storm—fragile, full of history, glowing with pride, yet always at risk of being snuffed out.

We still say “Joi Aai Axom”, but the phrase feels different now. Not because its meaning has changed, but because the space it once held in our hearts has been reshaped. Once roared in protests and mass movements, it now echoes from wedding stages and appears in bios, more aesthetic than defiant.

Our children speak less Assamese. Bihu is celebrated with drone shots and branded stages. We wear the gamusa proudly, but stumble when reading Assamese script. Something is shifting—quietly, steadily—but unmistakably.

Identity, in a New Light

To be Assamese once meant to grow up with riverbanks and rice fields, to know the smell of jolpan in the morning, and to carry the rhythm of Bihu, the ache of floods, the memory of movements. Bhupen Hazarika was more than a musician—he was a voice of the land.

Today, that identity stands at a crossroads—between memory and modernity, roots and rebranding. The younger generation doesn’t necessarily reject its identity—but often engages with it from a distance. And that’s okay. Watching Hindi OTT shows or embracing global culture doesn’t make someone less Assamese.

The concern isn’t with what we consume, but with what we forget.

Contradictions We Live With

We say we want to preserve heritage, yet allow our schools to dilute Assamese language instruction.
We speak of protecting indigenous rights, but rarely visit the rural communities that hold that heritage.
We share Bihu videos online, but forget to stand up when our forest dwellers are threatened with eviction.

To be Assamese in 2025 is to live inside these contradictions. And it’s not hypocrisy—it’s confusion, exhaustion, and displacement in a fast-changing world.

The Eviction Debate: Facts and Faultlines

Across Assam—from Dhubri to Goalpara, and in past instances like Silsako—large-scale eviction drives have been carried out to clear what the government identifies as illegal encroachments. In most cases, these actions are legally backed and aimed at protecting wetlands, government land, and forests.

The government maintains these are necessary steps to uphold land laws, and in many cases, that is valid.

But the fallout cannot be ignored. In Silsako, for example, a significant number of evictees were Assamese Hindus—many with documents, homes, and decades-long roots. In Lower Assam, evictions have impacted Muslim communities—some of whom claim legitimate tenancy or land rights.

While the state claims legality, the silence around rehabilitation, compensation, and community engagement exposes deeper gaps. The narrative often shifts from law enforcement to identity targeting—and in such charged contexts, perception becomes reality. 

The Opposition, meanwhile, does raise its voice—but often selectively. Genuine solidarity gets lost between political calculations and headline-chasing outrage.

Our Real Crisis: Amnesia

The greatest threat to Assamese identity isn’t encroachment. It’s forgetting.

We are forgetting:

– The tribal communities who once led land protection movements
– The authors and poets who gave shape to Assamese consciousness
– The rivers and forests that define our geography, and the people who live closest to them

A community doesn’t disappear all at once. It begins with forgetting its songs, its dialects, its margins.

We risk becoming a museum culture—where identity is neatly curated for display, not lived.

Signs of Hope

Yet, the flame hasn’t died.

Young artists are returning to write and sing in Assamese. Farmers in remote corners are forming cooperative collectives. Women from indigenous communities are leading grassroots forest economies. Independent journalists and creators are taking risks to tell stories that matter.

There’s quiet resistance in villages, towns, and online spaces—people trying to root themselves, even as the ground shifts beneath them.

Being Assamese in 2025 is not a fixed identity—it is a choice. A difficult, conscious, and sometimes inconvenient choice.

To our youth: Your Instagram bio can say “Axomiya,” but your everyday life must reflect it—in language, empathy, awareness, and action.

To our leaders: Don’t sell identity in soundbites. Don’t bulldoze heritage while claiming to protect it.

To the rest of us: We must remember. And remembering is not nostalgia—it is responsibility.

Because if we do not define what it means to be Assamese now, we may be the last generation that even bothers to ask.

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