ICH Workshop: Rice Cultures at Kokrajhar, Assam Back
A Two Day Workshop on Rice Cultures at Kokrajhar, Assam was organized on 5th-6th January 2019. This inter-community dialogue on Rice cultures and cultivation was a collaboration between INTACH, Ambedkar University Delhi and IIAS Leiden, to initiate a dialogue on the tradition and experience of growing rice, between 3 different communities of Kokrajhar District: Bodo, Rabha, and Rajbongshi. The resource persons from these communities led the discussions to highlight the various aspects of rice culture, memory, ritual and the cultivation experience, ranging from knowledge about seeds, preservation of seeds, cross breeding varieties, to farming methods, technology, tools, irrigation, sapling, re-planting and harvesting as well as challenges involved in growing rice today.
On the first day of the workshop, an exhibition of objects, items, photographs and other rice related materials was showcased to initiate the participants for a dialogue. Community specific and common experiences as part of the collective memory of rice growing community were discussed. Agricultural tools and different varieties of rice grains were discussed in great detail. A field visit to a Bodo village was made to study and understand the storage and preservation of grains.
On the second day a field visit was made to Teetaguri, a Rajbongshi village. Food items like Dhan Cheeda, Moodi, Seema Bhat (sticky rice), TilPeetha, Mola Laddu and more are prepared using rice (usually made during the festival of Bihu) by the village women. The next session on the same day, was conducted at the auditorium of the Science College, Kokrajhar. The cultural memory of shared knowledge of using rice for social and cultural rituals was shared.
The purpose of the workshop was multi-pronged. Apart from allowing an interaction between different communities, it will contribute to the existing body of knowledge pool in understanding the sociology of rice. This is one way of using social memory to record and reflect the importance of community knowledge for sustainable development. Besides this, it will help to see the way rice creates its space and even possibility of interdependence between different communities for food security.
