ABSTRACT
The question of identity has shaken the entire region of Assam time and again and has found expression in popular songs, mobile theatre, and movies. As popular media, these modes of creative production draw upon local culture and use cultural props in their representations of historical legends, popular myths and tales, and contemporary human conditions. In this chapter, two films based on the life of the legendary figure Jaimati/Joimati are analysed: Joymoti (1935), directed by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, and Joymati (2006), directed by Manju Borah. The first movie to be made in the Assamese language, Agarwala’s Joymoti also broke ground by featuring an empowered female heroine. In Borah’s portrayal, Joymati is also shown to be an empowered and visionary woman who changed the course of the history of Assam. This contribution discusses the ways these two cinematic adaptations of the legend of Joimati use visual cultural props, and how these visual presentations relate to ongoing transformations in identity politics concerning the Tai-Ahom community of Assam. Agarwala’s film displayed the props of a composite culture and wider Aryanised identity of Assamese people, catering to a pan-Indian nationalistic fervour in the colonial period. Borah’s Joymati reveals a significant shift with her use of non-Aryan cultural props, which serve to retrospectively construct a historical time in keeping with contemporary Tai-Ahom nationalism and identity politics.
