Vernacular bureaucracies and the discursive constitution of a Bengali region: Documents, development and territorial claims in Barak Valley, Assam

The linguistic status of Sylheti—variously framed as a Bengali dialect, a distinct language, or a stigmatised vernacular—remains unsettled. This ambiguity creates a politically charged interpretive space in India’s eastern borderlands. Focusing on Assam’s Barak Valley, where Sylheti-speaking Bengalis form a demographic majority yet remain marginal within dominant state narratives, the paper examines how influential cultural and civic actors seek recognition within a framework that renders their belonging unstable. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and an archive of pamphlets from Silchar-based organisations, it shows how these actors foreground a broader Bengali identity when addressing the Indian state. Through documentary practices invoking linguistic martyrdom, Partition-era sacrifice, and deep historical settlement, they stabilise Barak as a historically rooted Bengali space. The paper argues that developmentalism in Barak operates as a territorial strategy: demands for infrastructure and recognition gain legitimacy only after the region is rendered legible as Bengali through documentary and commemorative practices.