Dr. Debabrata Sharma is an

Assamese Brahmin Assamese Brahmins are the Brahmin, Brahmin community present in the Assamese people, Assamese society. There they promoted learning, Historical Vedic religion, Vedic religion, astrology, ayurveda and as well as imparting general vedic knowledge ...

from

Jorhat Jorhat ( /) is a major city in Upper Assam division, Upper Assam and among the fastest growing urban centres in the state of Assam in India. Etymology Jorhat ("jor" means twin and "hat" means market) means two hats or mandis - "Masorhaat" and ...

district of

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

. He is known for his uncompromising opposition to

caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...

oppression in a region where the

Dalit movement Dalit ( from meaning "broken/scattered") is a term used for untouchables and outcasts, who represented the lowest stratum of the castes in the Indian subcontinent. They are also called Harijans. Dalits were excluded from the fourfold varn ...

is feeble. He is also the Secretary of Eklabya Prakashan, a publishing house named after the legendary outsider figure

Ekalavya Ekalavya (, also spelt as Eklavya) is a character from the Hindu epic ''Mahābhārata''. He is described as a young prince of the Nishadas, a confederation of forest and hill tribes in ancient India. The son of Hiranyadhanus, a king of the Ni ...

of the

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...

Profession

By profession he is the Head of the Department of English in

Jorhat College Jorhat College (Amalgamated) is an undergraduate humanities college located in Jorhat, Assam, India. It offers two- and three-year degrees as well as vocational training. History The college was formerly two separate institutions, Jorhat Co ...

Jorhat, Assam.

Family background

He is from a family whose forefathers were martyrs in India's freedom struggle and in the anti-monarchy and caste movement from 1789 to 1806. "I have imbibed that tradition and I don’t believe in caste. I had to purge myself of upper caste feeling, which is not easy in a civil society. I was even shot at by

ULFA The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) is an armed separatist insurgent organisation, that operates in the Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an independent sovereign nation state of Assam for the indigenous Assamese people thro ...

militants for opposing their theory of de-nationalisation of Assamese people."—said Dr Sharma. He is now working as the chief editor on the ''Asomiya Jatiya Abhidhan'', an ambitious Assamese national dictionary to be released on 1 January 2010.

References

Living people People from Jorhat district Academic staff of Dibrugarh University Scholars from Assam Year of birth missing (living people) {{india-academic-bio-stub