Originally written in Assamese and published in 2009 as Thengphakhri Tehsildaror Tamor Tarowal by the renowned writer from Assam, Indira Goswami, also known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami and later translated to English by Aruni Kashyap, The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar explores themes of mimicry, ambivalence, hybridity as well as subtle feminism and recreating the history of India’s freedom struggle. It depicts the complex relationship between the colonisers and the colonised.
The novel is set in the Bijni Kingdom of the pre-independence era. It is the story of a legendary but forgotten figure of Thengphakhri, a widow from the Bodo community of Assam, who was arguably the first woman revenue collector (tehsildar) during the British regime in Assam. It is about her gradual transition from a loyal tehsildar of the British empire to a revolutionary fighter- who joins the national movement against the same empire. Indira Goswami recollects her forgotten story from the oral tradition of folklore, songs and a few historical sources. By doing so, she is able to immortalise the silenced voice of the legendary Bodo heroine who deserved to be at the same stage as the queen of Jhansi or Mulagabhoru from Ahom period. Also by drawing on the idea of a strong female character described in Bodo stories and folktales, Indira Goswami demonstrates the importance of the Bodo people in the nationalist movement against the British colonisers and therefore in the formation of the Indian nation and the state of Assam. The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar challenges the very core of a pre-independent Indian society where women were not considered equal to men as far as emotional and financial liberty was concerned. In her book, Goswami presents an almost Utopian kind of an Indian society where men support their female counterparts in their pursuit and in Thengphakhri’s case she is supported by her grandfather, uncle, fellow male villagers and most importantly the British officers, who go out of their way to make her feel comfortable. In one instance, supporting her decision to become a tax collector, an elderly person from her village stated, “when young widows are burnt alive with their husbands by force… in such times, our Thengphakhri will be collecting taxes! Will be working and earning for her family! Bah! This is amazing, we should be proud of her!”.
The novel depicts Homi K. Bhabha’s notions of mimicry, ambivalence and hybridity as tools of resistance towards colonialism. In the novel, we see that British officers try to impose their language, western education and their way of living on the natives. It is in this process of imposition that mimicry, ambivalence and hybridity emerge. A hybrid and distorted image is formed among the natives as a result of them trying to copy their colonisers and which ultimately threatens them. On many occasions, the British officers encourage Thengphakhri to copy their culture and their values. Interestingly, Thengphakhri herself has an inclination of mimicking. Captain Macklinson, a British officer working with her says at one point: “. Thengphakri, your children will get the light of education. They will be able to live like proper human beings”. Here, the exertion of superiority and stereotypical beliefs of the British towards the native’s way of life as improper is evident. There’s another officer named Captain Hardy. When Thengphakhri couldn’t pronounce the word ‘saddle’ properly, he had made her say the word twenty times. Here, we see parallels between Captain Hardy and Lord Macaulay, who in his famous Minute clearly mentioned the intention of the colonisers as “to create a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”. The lines from the novel spoken by Captain Hardy justify this: “Thengphakhri, you must help us…You will be one of our members”. We can understand how Captain Hardy wanted to employ Thengphakhri for the same purpose as indicated by Lord Macaulay. The Britishers wanted to reproduce a class of people just like them which will establish and confirm their supremacy.
Ambivalence is understood as the characteristic predicament of the colonized subject’s double attitude of both attraction and repulsion towards the coloniser, and Thengphakhri exhibits this throughout the novel. On one instance, when Macklinson asked her whether she liked working with them, Thengphakhri remained silent. She actually remains silent for the most part of the novel, only her actions speak. This indicates that even though she always followed the British officers’ orders, she was never clear about her feelings or attitude towards the British. Her attitude towards the British became more complicated and ambivalent after her uncle Musahari’s death. “In this soil, our forefathers’ blood and bones are mixed. Don’t let the boots of the Britishers fall on this soil. Thengphakri, take this soil and smear it on your forehead!”. These words by her uncle kept coming to her mind after his death. A sense of distrust emerged in her. Now she could see the exploitation of poor peasants of her community by the company. This is true for her grandfather, Tribhubon Bahadur either. He worked with the Britishers for several years. As we proceed in the story, we see a change of attitude in him towards the regime. Her uncle Musahari has a very interesting analogy to describe British Memsahibs. In his own words, “the people from the North say they are born from eggs laid in trees. The sahibs hold on to their waists so that they don’t fly off into the skies.” According to him, Thengphakhri is the complete opposite of them and calls her “a brave Bodo woman” of whom even the horses are scared of. This analogy by the author is a means to show the difference between Indian women and British Memsahibs as far as a privileged position in society is concerned. The Memsahibs command respect simply by the virtue of being the wives of British officers. On the other hand, women like Thengphakhri earn respect through hard work. The ‘bronze sword’ in the title not only emphasizes her bravery but also highlights the fact that she is a natural born fighter. There are many other characters who exhibit this change such as Khorgeshwor, Prince Ramchandra and most significantly, the Queen of Bijni and her subjects who earlier supported the company rule but gradually lost faith in the British rule and thus became more ambivalent. The novel is able to portray the change of attitude of the colonised to the colonisers. At the beginning of the novel, the natives of Bijni looked up to the Britishers as saviours or protectors from Bhutanese incursions into their land. But towards the ending, they see the British rule as a medium of exploitation and fight against them.
This divide leads to hybridity and it hybridity creates a space where the silenced colonial voices are unleashed. As per Bhabha, hybridity is problematic of colonial representation and individuation and it serves as a means of colonial resistance which helps in subverting the colonial discourse and the western narrative. Through this novel, Indira Goswami is able to reveal the hidden narrative of the colonised people. She has questioned the dominant narrative where mostly women are seen as oppressed by including a forgotten legendary heroine the literary world and creating a different type of character using silence as her weapon. It is made even more significant because she writes about a small tribal community from the North-eastern part of India which was often considered underrepresented. To add to our interests, the movement for greater self-determination by the Bodo people was also going on at the time the novel was published.
In addition to that, Goswami uses a number of Bodo and Assamese words in the novel. And she repeatedly refers to their cultural practices throughout the novel. For instance, she refers to Thengphakhri’s dress as ‘dokhona’, she refers to traditional beer as “jumai-jou”, to the lotus flower as ‘fami’ and to Thengphakhri’s bangles as ‘asanmuthi’ which are all Bodo words. Through the character of Khorgeshwor Sutradhar who performs in traditional one-act plays and once performed as the ‘Sutradhar’ of the play the “Rukmini Haran” written by the great social reformer of mediaeval Assam, Srimanta Sankardeva; Goswami is able to represent the traditional culture of Assam, besides portraying the colonial oppression.
According to Homi K. Bhabha: “the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference”. Indira Goswami’s The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar is a novel where mimicry, ambivalence and hybridity interplay together and these establish the differences between the colonisers and the colonised and act as powerful tools of colonial resistance. Towards the ending of the novel, Thengphakhri becomes disillusioned and takes a bronze sword on her hand to fight the British. Moreover, Macklinson saheb went back to England which signifies the arrival of India’s freedom.
This novel compels us to rethink on a number of issues. It makes us rethink about the way we narrate the history of India’s freedom struggle, about who do we exclude and who do we include and which communities, cultures and gender gain dominance over others. Through this novel, Indira Goswami has done a twofold work. One, of bridging the silence that exists in the history of India with regard to smaller communities like the Bodos. Second, re-narrating India’s freedom struggle by placing the Bodos at the forefront of literary discourse.