Assamese Literature During Pre-Independence Period: Contributions of Assam Civil Servants

The Assamese literature over the ages has been substantially enriched and enlarged with the contributions made by section of Assamese Civil Servants of the state. During the period before Independence, they were working as the officials under the British administration in the Indian Provincial Civil Service. They were generally men of strong educational backgrounds and the spirit of new thinking and ideals which they were exposed to, recieved a consummate expression in their works. During the critical period of the state’s national existence, they worked arduously towards giving a new lease of life to the Assamese literature and even during the post-war period, with equal urge, they have been into the development of it. In many ways, the writers among the civil servants before attainment of Independence- who trailed the path for the modern Assamese literature along with their other compatriots were the moral guardians of the people of their state. The humanistic, secular tradition was introduced into the Assamese literature by them and in the process they ushered in a renaissance for their literature (which meant a total break with the earlier tradition of religion-dominated social literature). Thus the literature of the time founded by this creative minority came to very effectively work for the purpose of national reconstruction while simultaneously serving to crystalize a modern form of Assamese literature. The contribution of these civil officers, during the British rule, towards the growth and development of the Assamese literature is thus a distinctly pronounced and perceptible phenomenon.