Bhumidhar Barman

It was on April 7, 1937, that the Assam Legislative Assembly came into being with its first sitting at the Assembly chamber in Shillong, which was the capital of Assam till the creation of Meghalaya on January 21, 1972.

On the eve of celebration of the platinum jubilee of the Assembly, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to attend, one of the senior most legislators, Bhumidhar Barman, travels down memory lane and shares his thoughts with The Telegraph on how the state legislature has evolved over the years.

I was 36 when I was first elected to the Assam Assembly from Nalbari West constituency. A British-era building near the beautiful Wards Lake in Shillong then housed the Assembly.

The strength of the Assembly then — 1967 — was increased to 126 from 108. Because of that, I along with a few other newly elected MLAs were put up at Hotel Pinewood as our official residences were not ready.

In those days, the Assembly was full of freedom fighters, stalwarts and luminaries such as Bishnu Prasad Rabha, Bhupen Hazarika, Bisnu Ram Medhi, Debeswar Sarmah, Lakshyadhar Chaudhury, Dev Kant Borooah and others. Then we also had MLAs from present-day Meghalaya and Mizoram.

Today, we miss MLAs of that stature, as there is hardly any prominent litterateur, intellectual or artiste in the Assembly.

By the time I was re-elected to the Assembly in 1972, Mizoram and Meghalaya had been carved out of Assam. There was a demand from many quarters for shifting the capital of Assam from Shillong to the Brahmaputra Valley, though some MLAs from the Barak Valley wanted Shillong to remain the capital of the state. I remember a former MLA from Jorhat, Debeswar Sarmah, saying that we should immediately shift the capital even if the state Assembly were to be housed in a tin shed.

Jorhat, Silghat, Jagiroad and Guwahati were suggested as the new capital.

In 1972, then state government headed by chief minister Sarat Chandra Sinha decided to shift the state capital to Dispur temporarily.

Accordingly, the first sitting of the budget session of the Assembly was held at the temporary capital at Dispur on March 16, 1973.

A warehouse was converted into the Assembly and some small Assam-type houses were turned into MLA hostels.

The warehouse-turned-Assembly was surrounded by agriculture fields and I vividly remember how we used to carry slippers and shoes in our hands to wade through the water to reach the Assembly.

Even though then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had laid the foundation stone of the permanent capital complex at Chandrapur in 1983, later the decision was revoked since the site was far away from Guwahati and the temporary capital at Dispur became the permanent capital of Assam.

The infrastructure of the state Assembly has rapidly improved over the years and a new Assembly building is under construction.

The modern MLA hostels can’t be compared with the dismal condition of MLA hotels of that time.

What troubles me is that the kind of respect people used to have for their elected representatives earlier is missing today.

During my initial days in the Assembly, the relationship between the Opposition and ruling party MLAs outside the House was almost cordial, which can be hardly seen today. Unlike today, unruly scenes were barely witnessed in the House, as the MLAs were more disciplined, tolerant and cooperative.

Since there were many distinguished persons from different fields such as art, culture and literature in the Assembly, the standard of debate and discussions were also high.

(As told to Pankaj Sarma)