Ahead of the inauguration of India’s longest bridge this Friday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there are calls to name it after the legendary Assamese singer-composer Bhupen Hazarika.
Travel time
Mr. Modi will inaugurate the 9.15-km Dhola-Sadiya Bridge over Lohit river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra, on Friday. The bridge will bring upper Assam closer to eastern Arunachal Pradesh and is estimated to reduce travel time by four hours. The bridge will also make it much easier for Army convoys to reach outposts near the China border.
The bridge in Tinsukia district is located over 500-km from Assam’s Capital Dispur and 300-km from Arunachal Pradesh’s Capital Itanagar.
Stating that Hazarika was born in the region (in Assam’s Sadiya), the Patriotic People’s Front Assam (PPFA) had recently issued a statement saying that the “cultural icon can be identified as a man of assimilation, who connected various big and small communities of the region like a golden thread”. The Arunachal Pradesh Literary Society (APLS) too agreed with this statement.
Letter to PMO
In a letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, the APLS had said that Sadiya had served as one of the administrative headquarters of the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), as Arunachal was known as earlier, when Hazarika was born in 1926 until the devastating earthquake in 1950.
The APLS said, “Although Sadiya falls under Assam at present, Hazarika’s birthplace is said to be at Bolung village of Lower Dibang Valley district in Arunachal”.