History

The Department of M. I. L. in Gauhati University was established in 1967. It was then basically a research Department. Dr. S. N. Sarma, Late Rabindranath Tagore Professor, shaped the department and earned great reputation as an outstanding scholar in the field of, literature, indology, culture, and civilization of Assam. During his stay in the department, he wrote a number of outstanding books and produced more than a score of Ph. D. research scholars. Later on Dr. S. N. Goswami, retired Rabindranath Tagore Professor and Dr. B. Sasrma, Professor of the department also produced a large number of Ph. D. students and wrote several research papers and books. The number of Ph. D. scholars produced by the department is as many as seventy in different areas like literature, language and culture of t he entire North Eastern region.

After a decade in 1977, the department was horizontally expanded and several diploma courses like Assamese, Oriya, and Tamil were introduced. A number of students got themselves associated to these courses.

The M. Phil. Course in Assamese was first introduced by the department in 1983-84. By that time it has produced more than 100 M. Phil. Students in Assam for catering the needs of the undergraduate colleges of this region.

The Boro Certificate course was started in the department in the year 1985-86. Later on the Diploma Course in Boro was also introduced in 1994-95.

In the North-Eastern region, the department of MIL was pioneer in introducing the PG course in Boro for the first time. The Post Graduate course in Boro was introduced in 1995 and till then a good number of students have got the chances to obtain the M. A. degree in Boro Language and Literature.

Being basically a research department still now a team of scholars are associated with different research programmes in this Department.