Born in 1909, Bishnu Prasad Rabha was an artiste par excellence and continues to be celebrated as ‘Kala Guru’ for his exceptional contribution to the Assamese artistic paradigm. His political and artistic career flourished in Tezpur, Sonitpur district, Assam.
A strident patriot, he enmeshed his political and revolutionary views into his art. He voiced for the working class and the deprived and exhorted for not simply freedom from the British, but a more profound liberation from poverty and class differences. He was closely associated with the Indian People’s Theatre Association of Assam and composed the plays Krishak and Sapon Kuwali among others.
His artistic genius was mirrored in his works as a poet, dramatist, musician, dancer, actor, and finally as a politician in independent India. A thorough academician, he is often hailed as the first serious Anthropologist of Assam working at the grass-roots level.
Rabha’s restless zeal to serve the people of his land led him to donate 2500 bighas of ancestral land to peasants encouraging them to stand up against the imperial powers. His personal financial adversity cost his beloved wife and Kanaklata an untimely death from lack of treatment, yet, Rabha continued his long travails across Assam arousing people’s spirits for a united struggle for class and national freedom.
A doyen of Assam’s cultural nationalism, Bishnu Prasad Rabha’s legacy lives on as a testament to unconditional service to the nation and its people.
Source: Indian Culture Portal