The Boro (बर'/बड़ो ), also called Bodo, are a Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnolinguistic group native to the state of Assam in India. They are a part of the greater Bodo–Kachari family of ethnolinguistic groups and are spread across northeastern India. They are concentrated mainly in the Bodoland Territorial Region of Assam, though Boros inhabit all other districts of Assam and Meghalaya.
Boros were listed under both "Boro" and "Borokachari" in The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, and continue to be called so in the Census of India documents. Boros speak the Boro language, a Boro-Garo language of the Tibeto-Burman family, which is recognised as one of twenty-two Scheduled languages of India. Over two-thirds of the people are bilingual, speaking Assamese as second language. The Boro along with other cognate groups of Bodo-Kachari peoples are prehistoric settlers who are believed to have migrated at least 3,000 years ago."Most scholars suggest that the first Tibeto-Burman-speaking peoples began to enter Assam at least 3,000 years ago." Boros are mostly settled farmers, who have traditional irrigation, dong.
The Boro people are recognised as a plains tribe in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, and have special powers in the Bodoland Territorial Region, an autonomous division; and also as a minority people.
Etymology Boro is the self-designation or autonym of the community."The people very seldom call themselves by any other name other than Bodo or Boro". Boro comes from Bara-fisa, which means "son of Bara", and Bara stands for "man" or "male member" of the group."...we have references to the term Bara-fisa meaning child of the Baras and the term Bara-fisa must have been subsequently termed as simply as Bara pronounced as Boro. Dr P C Bhattacharya writes that like other tribal names in Assam the name Bara stands for man or male member In the cognate language Kokborok, Borok means man ('k' being a suffix for nouns) and so logically, Boro would mean man even in the Boro language. In closely allied Tripura language, “Boro” is pronounced as “Borok” which means Man. Generally, the word Boro means a man, in the wider sense Boro means a human being (but not specific to a female member of the family) in the languages used by the Bodo-Kachari peoples.
Language
The Boro language is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It belongs to the Boro–Garo group of the Tibeto-Burman languages branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. It is an official language of the state of Assam and the Bodoland Territorial Region of India. It is also one of the twenty-two languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
Religion Traditionally, Boros practised Bathouism, which is the worshiping of supreme God, known as Obonglaoree. The shijou tree is taken as the symbol of Bathou and worshiped. It is also claimed as the supreme god. In the Boro language, Ba means five and thou means deep. Since Boros believe in the five mighty elements of God – land, water, air, fire, and ether – the number five has become significant in the Bathou culture, which is similar to the five elements of other Asian religions.
According to Bathouism, before the creation of the universe there was simply a great void, in which the supreme being 'Aham Guru', Anan Binan Gosai or Obonglaoree existed formlessly. Aham Guru became tired of living a formless existence and desired to live in flesh and blood. He descended on this great void with all human characteristics and created the universe.
In addition to Bathouism, Boro people have also been converted to Hinduism, especially Hoom Jaygya. For this worship through fire ceremony, a clean surface near a home or courtyard is prepared. Usually, worship offerings include a betel nut called a 'goi' and a betel leaf called a 'pathwi' or 'bathwi' and rice, milk, and sugar. Another important Hindu festival, the Kherai Puja, where an altar is placed in a rice field, is the most important festival of the Boros. However, caste and dowry practices are not practised by the majority of Boro Hindus, who follow a set of rules called Brahma Dharma.
A majority of the Bodo people still follow Bathouism, but in censuses, they are often classified as Hindus, as their native religion has no official recognition under the Indian constitution.
Christianity is followed by around 10% of the Boros and is predominantly of the Baptist denomination. The major Boro Churches associations are the Boro Baptist Convention and Boro Baptist Church Association.
History After the break-up of Kamarupa around the 12th century till the colonial times (19th century) and beyond different ethnic groups settled in different ecological regions"Several communities inhabiting these areas since precolonial times, which include the Bodo, Garo, Khasi, Bhutia, Rajbanshi, etc, had settled across a wider geography characterised by similar ecological features (Nathan 1936). Over the second millennium of our common era, the process for consolidation of these habitats began. The Bodos, too, underwent this process." but the constant movements and intermixing of peoples led to the development of distinctive but hybrid cultural practices."The historical movement of populations was often determined by local ecological pressures like a crisis of resources to support an increasing population or natural disturbances like the rapid change in the course of some river. The visible absence of boundaries representing the nation state also allowed a free flow of people. The region thus helped in the growth of a distinctively hybrid space of ecology and linguistic practices." According to , even as different state systems emerged, expanded, and fell—such as the Mughals, the Koch, the Ahoms, and British colonialism—the Boros resisted entry into their fiscal systems and moved slowly but continuously to avoid them."The Bodos were continuously, albeit slowly, on the move for a long period. This practice was fairly true for most communities who resisted any entry into the formal state-led fiscal system whether it was the Mughal, Koch and Ahom rulers or the British colonial government." Due to the expansion of these states and the expansion of tenured peasantry,"The consolidation of the Hindu Assamese peasantry in the flat fertile valley over the past few centuries had demarcated agrarian boundaries. The tribal peasantry was further boxed inside a fixed geography, a process that made them strangers within the Hindu Assamese agrarian territory." the Boros were those who finally converged close to the forested regions of the lower Himalayan foothills."Historically, they lived closer to the forested areas along the foothills of southern Bhutan region or the lower Himalayan ranges(Allen 1905)"
In this habitat, the Boros practised shifting cultivation"All these accounts confirm that the Bodo tribe followed slash and burn cultivation. Although wet rice cultivation and plow were a characteristic of the Indo-Aryans, Bodos transitioned from using these methods of cultivation by the 1870s due to closer contact with settled populations." for self-sustenance and controlled forest products. To cultivate in this difficult terrain the Boros developed innovative low-cost irrigation systems that supported shifting cultivation."The Bodos have innovatively re-engineered the water flow into these areas and created a localised irrigation system (Guha 1982). But this did not support an overall production of surplus crop... The low-cost irrigation works facilitated through community labour did not stand against their tradition of shifting agriculture..." Landholding, sowing and harvesting, irrigation, and hunting were all performed collectively."[H]istorically the Bodos have practised communal landownership. This was equally true in their preference for collective labour which was needed for irrigation works and during the sowing or harvesting seasons; even hunting was a collective effort." As those who controlled forest based produce, they emerged as intermediaries in the trade in these as well as other goods between the plains and the hills and complex relationships developed. The Boros remained shifting cultivators at least till the 18th century and then slowly became less mobile;"For long, the Bodo remained shifting cultivators in a flat valley. At least till the 18th century, they were yet to be fixed into a permanent geography. This meant they would hardly practise a permanent form of cultivation though slowly they became less mobile" even during the colonial period, most Boros refused permanent land tenure"During colonial rule, a majority of Bodo peasants, like many others in the Brahmaputra Valley refused to accept permanent land tenure." or made no effort to secure landholding documents."Colonial rule even failed to infuse a permanent nature of cultivation among the Bodos. This was true for most tribal communities of the region. The Bodos rarely tried to secure written records of landownership."
When the Koch dynasty (1515–1949) consolidated its rule in the 16th century into the regions that the Boro people had settled in, it demarcated the region north of the Gohain Kamal Ali—which came to be called the Duars—as the region where non-Brahmin culture could thrive. After the Ahom kingdom consolidated its power in western Assam in the 17/18th century it made special arrangements with Bhutan to share administrative and fiscal responsibilities. But when the British banned forest lands from being used for cultivation in the last quarter of the 19th century the Boros suffered a major habitat loss since the forest lands historically used for shifting cultivation and the source of other produce suddenly became unavailable to them. To alienate indigenous peasants from their lands was a stated colonial aim, to make them available as labour in other enterprises."A principal aim in mid-19th century Assam was to flush out native peasants from the land, as documented in government reports and arbitrary land revenue increments. They were to be coerced into surrendering what Marx called "conditions of labour" to the tea planters; an achievement that was to ensure a ready reserve army of labour."
Boro identity formation