ABSTRACT
The notion of ‘transnation’ in its contemporary currency implies various conceptualisations of border-crossings, globalisation and cosmopolitanism. This chapter explores the possibility of reading back the notion to a time when the idea of India was in its nebulous epoch – when various sub-national categories, peoples, tribes and religious groups were moving towards a nation-state as the newly independent India was emerging. Both centripetal and centrifugal forces seem to be at work here, especially if we consider the representations of this historical space in two specific Assamese films. Joymati (1935) and Ajeyo (2014) address the same time–space–nation conundrum: while the former is in the thick of nationalism narratives and speaks from there, Jahnu Barua’s Ajeyo is a revisitation, a reimagination of the partition stories of Assam in 1947. Both grapple with the ideas of identity and borders: the Ahom kingdom vis-à-vis the Naga tribal amalgamation in Joymati and religious identities in Ajeyo. Many of the issues resonate today as it had in 1947; there are also the added layers of the 1971 war and the formation of Bangladesh, the Assam Movement of the 1980s and its aftermath to consider when we analyse such revisitations.
