TheMech (spelledMeche inNepal; pronounced /mes/ or /meʃ/) is an ethnic group belonging to theBodo-Kachari group of peoples. It is one of thescheduled tribes of India, listed both inWest Bengal andAssam,India.[1][2] They inhabit West Bengal, Nepal, Assam and Nagaland.[web 1]
Meche or Mech language is spoken in Jhapa district of Nepal and it belongs to Boro-Garo subgroup of Tibeto-Burman family. It is usually considered to be same language as Boro language spoken in Assam. However, it along with Boro language of northern West Bengal form western dialects of Boro language.[4]
It has been suggested thatmech is probably a corruption of the Sanskrit wordmlechchha.[5] Nevertheless,Stuart N. Wolfenden observed that some people do self-designate as Mech,[6] So, he reconstructedMech from Tibeto-Burman root "mi" means "man".[7] Other authors have speculated thatMeche is derived from theMechi river because theBodo-Kachari peoples in Nepal had settled around it;[8][9]Mecha a region of theBod country; and descendants of Mechel a legendary figure of Nepal.[10]
TheBodo-Kachari peoples migrated into present-day India and gradually spread themselves throughoutAssam,North Bengal and parts ofEast Bengal. It is said that during their migration to India, they marched towards different directions. One group went along the riverBrahmaputra and established themselves in the whole of Assam up toGoalpara district as well as parts ofJalpaiguri district andCooch Behar district under the name of Bodo or Boro. Another group went towards the West along the foot of theHimalayas up to the river Mechi, borderingIndia andNepal and settled on the North bank of the river known as Mechi or Mechia. Later they spread toDarjeelingTerai,Baikanthpur inJalpaiguri district again marched further East and settled in theDooars. It is said that, a group of Mech people, again moved further East, crossed theSankosh river, and went towardsGoalpara in Assam. Due to repeated floods inDooars and eastern bank ofTeesta river, many families migrated towardsAssam.[11]
The first record is found from the year 1205 A.D inTabaqat-i Nasiri, where they are mentioned along with theKoch andTharu and are found to inhabit between the country ofTibet andLakhanawati (Gauda).[12][13] In Persian history, these three groups of people, the Koch, Mech and Tharu, possessed the physiognomy of theTurks and theMongols and their speech was different from the rest of the subcontinent.[14] It is recorded that oneAli Mech, Mech chieftain, guidedBakhtiyar Khalji's army in hisinvasion of Tibet viaKamrup.[15][16] 16th/17th century'sYogini Tantra states that Kuvacas were born of a Mech woman.[12] According to Darrang Rajvamsavali of Koch kings and MS Chronicle collected by Buchanon Hamilton,Biswa Singha's father was a Mech and mother was a Koch.[17] 19th and 20th century's scholars state that designation Mech is name applied to western section of Bodos by others and also to some extent by the people themselves.[18]
The Mech-Kacharis want to preserve their language, culture and uplift their economic status; and so they have been demanding a Mech-Kachari autonomous council for some time.[web 2]
TheCentral Bureau of Statistics of Nepal classifies the Mech (called Meche in the Nepal census) as a subgroup within the broader social group ofTeraiJanajati.[19] At the time of the2011 Nepal census, 4,867 people (0.0% of the population of Nepal) were Mech. The frequency of Mech people by province was as follows:
^(Barua 1964:3)The Bodos who live to the west of the present Kamrup district are called ‘Mec’ by their Hindu neighbours. This word is probably a corruption of the Sanskrit word ‘mleccha’.
^"(Mech) is used not only by their neighbours but also to some extent by the people themselves." (Wolfenden 1935:145)
^" As such tribal names are frequently simply words originally meaning "man", it is not unlikely that the term Mes may go back to this source. In such an event it may be expected to representme-s, in whichme is the same word as Tibetan and Meitheimi 'man', and-s is probably the same suffix as-si in Deori-Chutiya (Sibsagar)ma-si (Lakhimpur dialectmo-si) 'man'."(Wolfenden 1935:145)
^"Saru Sanyal has writes that a section of the Boros in the course of their movement in Assam moved towards the west along the foothills of Himalayas up to the river Mech between India and Nepal and settled down along the bank of the river and were called Mech after the river." (Mosahary 1983:46)
^"the Bodos, who migrated into India through Patkoi hills..." (Sanyal 1973:1)
^"The description of (Bakhtiyar Khalji's) disastrous campaign provides us with some information about the populations (Siraj 1881: 560-1):... Konch, sometimes written Koch, (the same hesitation occurs in Buchanan-Hamilton’s manuscripts), is what we today write as Koch. Mej or Meg is the name we write as Mech. We can safely conclude that these names described important groups of people in the 13th century, in the area between the Ganges and the Brahmaputra." (Jacquesson 2008:16–17)
^"(W)e read in Persian history that these races [Koch, Mech, Taru] had Turki countenances (i.e slanting eyes, snub nose, high cheek-bones and yellow complexion of the Mongols), and they spoke a 'different idiom' from the language of India proper"(Chatterji 1951:101)
^In former number of this journal the writer has proposed an explanation of the name Bara-fisa, and it now seems that - designation applied to western section of the same people is also capable of an interpretation going back to tibeto-burman original...(Mech) is used not only by their neighbours but also to some extent by the people themselves. (Wolfenden 1935:145)
Brahma, Nirjay Kumar (2008). "Introduction: Interpretation of Bodo or Boro".Socio political institutions in Bodo society (PhD). Guwahati University.hdl:10603/66535.
Wolfenden, Stuart N (1935). "Note on the Tribal Name Mes (Mech)".The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.67 (1):145–146.doi:10.1017/S0035869X00083295.JSTOR25201053.
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