When Bishnu Rabha Returned: A Conversation Across Time

Wherever there is struggle, let my songs be your weapons. Wherever there is silence, let my voice be your rebellion.  — Bishnu Prasad Rabha

He appeared not with spectacle, but with silence—like the forgotten verses of a forgotten revolution. A white cotton gamocha over his shoulder, eyes burning with the fire of conviction, and the stillness of one who has seen too much. It was Bishnu Prasad Rabha—“Kalaguru”, the time-traveling conscience of Assam.

Interviewer: Rabha, welcome back. It’s been decades since you walked these roads. What do you see when you look at Assam today?

Rabha: "What do I see? I see a land bleeding not from swords, but from silence. I see the sons of this soil standing in queues to prove their identity, while those who loot our land sleep peacefully under borrowed flags."

Interviewer: The NRC, CAA, and the immigration debate have divided Assam deeply. Where do you stand?

Rabha:  "I stood then, and I stand now, for justice—not for division. Our fight was never against the poor crossing borders out of desperation. It was against those who divide people to rule. Remember this: A system that asks a fisherman from Dhubri to produce 1971 documents but lets millionaires buy citizenship—is not a system, it’s a marketplace."

Interviewer: The language question has again returned—between Assamese, Bodo, Bengali, and tribal tongues. What’s your take?

Rabha (leaning forward): "Language should unite us like rivers merging into the Brahmaputra. But today, language is used like a dagger. When I sang for Assam, I sang in Assamese, Bodo, Mising, Bengali—not because I was confused, but because I was free. Let a Bodo sing in Rabha’s voice, and a Rabhance to Karbi beats. That is Assam. That is a revolution."

Interviewer: What about the floods? Year after year, lives are lost, homes drowned. We’ve seen little political will.

Rabha (quietly): "Every drop of floodwater is a testament to the betrayal of this land. You spend thousands of crores on statues, but cannot build embankments strong enough to protect a farmer’s hut? They call it a natural disaster. No. It is a political crime repeated every monsoon."

Interviewer: And yet, we have large youth populations. But unemployment is at an all-time high. Many leave for cities, or turn to drugs.

Rabha: "What use is a government that gives Wi-Fi in colleges, but no books in libraries? Your youth are taught to dream in English, but are not given the soil to grow roots. Let me tell you this: if socialism was truly practiced, every child in Lakhimpur and every girl in Barak Valley would have not just education, but dignity. You have turned students into products. That is not progress. That is cultural death."

Interviewer: You sound angry.

Rabha (smiling faintly): "No. I am awake. Anger without direction is destruction. But awakening—
—awakening is revolution."

Interviewer: Rabha, do you think the spirit of revolution still survives here?

Rabha (pointing at the ground): "It does. Beneath this soil, it sleeps. The problem is not that people don’t care—the problem is that they are taught to forget. Media sells noise, not truth. Politics sells faces, not ideology. Even culture is sold in gift boxes and token shows, not sung in the fields or written in hunger. But one spark... One spark, my friend, can still light this land aflame with consciousness."

Interviewer: What would you say to today’s youth?

Rabha: "Do not be proud of borrowed slogans. Be proud of your farmer father and weaver mother. Learn your history—not from textbooks, but from the streets where uprisings died unknown. Create art that disturbs the powerful. Speak a language that feeds the hungry. And above all—love Assam not as a map, but as a mother with a torn sari, standing knee-deep in floodwater, waiting for her children to return."

[He paused, the silence heavier than words.]

Rabha (softly, with resolve): "And one more thing—‘Rabha Divas’ is not something you light candles for once a year. I am not a statue. I am an idea. Socialism is not a speech—it is a discipline of empathy. A daily rebellion.
Revolution doesn't come in a day. It arrives slowly, when you walk beside the hungry, when you question power, when you refuse to be bought. So if you must celebrate me—do it not with garlands, but with action. Every single day."

The rain had stopped. A breeze from the Brahmaputra swept through the window. Rabha stood, looked once at the fields, then at the sky—as if time was calling him back. And just like that, he was gone. But his voice? It stayed.