This study reveals the emerging trends of agriculture in Assam by focusing the changes in agricultural land use in an indigenous non-tribal Hindu village. In the study village, some parts of the farm lands were converted for other uses than rice cultivation due to the low agricultural productivity, government policy of distributing cheap rice produced in other states, unstable weather condition, shortage of labour, and so on. Farm lands are partly converted as either forest lands or fishponds depending on its size and distance from the land owners’ residential areas. Villagers prefer fish ponds to plant trees because of the lower construction cost and instant cash income. Muslims in neighbouring villages play the important roles in catching and selling fish in the ponds because Hindus in the village are reluctant to do so for religious reasons. At the grassroots level, collaboration with Muslims enables the transformation of the livelihoods in the Hindu village. This reveals little-known aspects of the relationship between the two communities in Assam, which is usually believed to be the cause of social disorder.

Today, single portraits representing Guru Nanak are very popular among Sikhs and are frequently hung on the walls of house and temple. This paper explores the implications of the emergence of the wall-hung portraits in the British colonial period on the formation of the modern Sikh identity. After the Punjab region was annexed in 1849, the middle class emerged across ethnicities and religions, and the intellectuals were later engaged with the socio-religious movements led by the Singh Sabhas, which aimed to normalize Sikh orthodoxy in opposition to the Christian propagation. The urban middle class, along with the British, patronised the art of the Punjab region after the Sikh royalty and nobility collapsed. Since they received western education and enjoyed western culture, portraits of Guru Nanak likely came to be hung on the walls of Sikh’s temple and house. Portraits of Guru Nanak, which were painted both in a unique three quarter face and in a Hindu-like frontal, have played a pivotal role on the social cohesion among Sikhs who belonged to different factions. It is fair to say that portraiture of Guru Nanak is an indispensable viewpoint in the study of modern and contemporary Sikhism.