Making of Women History and Identity: A Study of Dimasa Women in Assam

Abstract

Women history is the study of the role that women have played in history. However in our history study of women history is the belief that more traditional recordings of history have minimized or ignored the contribution of women. The main centers of scholarship have been the United States and Britain where seconds wave feminist historians, influenced by the new approaches promoted by social history led the way. As activists in women liberation discussing and analyzing the appression and inequality they experience as women, they believed it imperative to learn about the lives of their foremothers and found very little scholarship in print. History was written mainly by men and about man’s activities in the public sphere – war, politics, diplomacy and administration. Women are usually excluded and when mentioned are usually portrait in sex stereotypical roles such as wife, mother, daughter and mistresses.
However more than three decades after the radical activism of the women’s movement of the 1970s, we are still standing at a point in psychological discourse where a variety of questions related to women’s experience, their identities and notion of agency and politics remain unarticulated. While most of the feminist criticism in India during the period in disciplines like literature, anthropology, history or political science has produced a rich and diverse scholarship being strongly influence by the post-structuralist and post modern critique. Situating women’s identity and women related research were done in India also. J.Gupta, S. Kakar, S.V. Prasad, F.M. Sahu, K. Saradamoni, D. Vasantha are the some scholars that contributed in this field.
Many times we have largely ignored studying traditions on account of this “unknown historicity” and problems of dateability. In the absence of substantive research a powerful domain which could have significant repercussion on studies on gender, remains hidden from history. This paper revolves around some common dominant identifiable Dimasa tribal tradition, which was prevalent in their society. Some of have survived in slightly modified forms while others have disappeared or are in different stages of disintegration. An attempt is made here to study traditions as entry points into exploration of position, role, behavioral pattern and conditions of existence of Dimasa women. The districts that form the canvas of this study include NC Hills, Karbi Anglong and Nagaon district of Assam. This region is highly populated by the Dimasa people.
In Dimasa society the women enjoyed an excellent position. Theoretically is so patriarchal and priestly a tribe man should be in the ascendant; actually women have great freedom and no little authority. She may go about on her own, she generally chooses her own husband, she may dance in public, they may take her weaved clothes to a bazaar and own her open shop, there, she may own property and she may drink in her husband’s presence.