had never heard of the Bodo heroine Thengphakhri until I came across Aruni Kashyap's translation of Indira Goswami's last novel, The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar. Apparently I'm not alone in this—although the character is mentioned in folk tales she has largely been forgotten, even in Assam.
As a result, not much is known of this legendary figure, and Kashyap's introduction to the book suggests that Goswami had to weave together scraps of stories from local folklore with historical research. What we do know about her is that she was a Bodo woman from the Bijni Kingdom, and probably the first female revenue collector (or tehsildar) and that she would become a freedom fighter.
The first woman tehsildar, the only woman in the area to ride a horse, stunningly beautiful and the owner of a bronze sword, all of these mark Thengphakhri out as a heroic figure, as indeed she is. But Goswami chooses not to have her novel follow the trajectory of the traditional hero's story. The bronze sword of the title is never used here, and the book's focus is never on Thengphakhri's anti- colonial activities (surely the most obvious plot for a story about a freedom fighting heroine).
Because The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar isn't really a hero narrative at all, but something quieter and more introspective.Set in the late 1800s during the years in which Thengphakhri is a revenue collector for the British, Goswami's novel depicts a society in which the British presence may be cause for unease, but individual Britishers and the East India Company still inspire loyalty, gratitude and admiration among many. If their taxes are exploitative and their increasing control over the region worrying, they also protect the region from Bhutan.
{ | A big part of what makes the novel interesting, then, is what it doesn’t tell us. Beyond a couple of fleeting references to a husband we know nothing about Thengphakhri’s status as a widow. |
For much of this story Thengphakhri is depicted as an observer rather than an actor. Her position as an official working for the British marks her as something as an outsider within her community. She has close friendships with two British men, and is particularly affected by the death of her mentor, Hardy.