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Materials and Methodologies :

The data for the present study have been collected through extensive fieldwork from six urban centres of Assam, i.e. Guwahati, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Tezpur,
Kokrajhar and Goalpara. These urban centres were selected purposively. People belonging to different communities from different parts of India poured into and settled mostly in the urban areas over the years and as such these areas are more heterogeneous in terms of culture, religion and language. Guwahati, being the capital and nerve center of the state, has accommodated diverse communities. Besides, two urban centers from upper Assam, i.e. Tinsukia and Sivasagar, one from central Assam, i.e., Tezpur and two from lower Assam, i.e. Kokrajhar and Goalpara were selected in order to understand the relationship between the mainland people of Assam and the communities from other parts of the country.

Though the project was officially launched on April 8, 2004 the actual work started in June and continued till December 2004. Six qualified research investigators were appointed to undertake fieldwork. They were put to orientation and training under the able guidance of very experienced social scientists of the Department of Anthropology, Gauhati University for a period of seven days starting from June 12, 2004.

Two structured schedules – one for the Assamese community and the other for the other communities were designed in order to collect the relevant information. The schedules were canvassed at random among three other communities, i.e. the Bengali, the Bihari and the Marwari besides Assamese inhabiting different selected areas as detailed below:

The above data can be represented by bar diagram as follows