Guwahati Students Take Assam’s Tai-Ahom Heritage to Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 GUWAHATI, 1st September 2026 — Two fifteen-year-old students, Neeraj Sarmah and Ankit Mandal, from St. Vivekananda English Academy, Guwahati, presented a formal diplomatic proposal before senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Thailand in Bangkok on 21 August 2026, on the occasion of the approaching 80th Anniversary of Thailand-India Diplomatic Relations.

The visit was their prize. Neeraj and Ankit had won the 12th edition of the national Namaste Thailand Quiz 2026, held earlier this year in May at Guwahati’s Srimanta Sankardev International Convention Centre. Ms. Kanokporn Kunnawattana, Minister Counsellor at the Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi, had attended the Guwahati quiz and used the term Pi-Nong - elder sibling, younger sibling, family - to describe the civilisational affinity between Assam and Thailand through shared Tai-Ahom roots, culture, and language.

The students carried that sentiment directly into the Ministry’s headquarters in Bangkok. Accompanied by their teacher and school alumna Ms. Shatabdi Dey, the session opened with the students felicitating senior Thai diplomats with traditional Assamese Gamosas and presenting five original paintings created by student artists, followed by the traditional triple greeting: Sawatdee Khrap, Namaste, and Nomoskar.

The presentation titled - ‘A Bridge Over the Brahmaputra and the Chao Phraya’ - opened with a linguistic bridge: the word Mong, meaning homeland in the Tai-Ahom language of Assam’s founding dynasty (founded by Chaolung Sukaphaa in 1228 CE), shares its ancestral Proto-Tai root with the Thai word Mueang, meaning city or homeland. The students highlighted how Rongali Bihu and Songkran celebrate the same solar new year (Mesha Sankranti) across shared skies.

Grounded in the bilateral MoUs signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bangkok visit on 3 April 2025, the students formally proposed The Guwahati Declaration, featuring two structured initiatives - a bilateral artisan residency between Muga silk weavers of Sualkuchi, Assam, and Thai silk artisans of Chiang Mai; and the Siam-Brahmaputra Youth League, an annual academic championship connecting Northeast India’s seven sister states with Thailand’s provinces.

The civilisational connection was confirmed from an unexpected direction during the session. Mr. Torsak Janpian, Minister Counsellor at the MFA, spoke of a discovery from his home province of Phetchaburi - whose very name derives from Sanskrit - that lends archaeological weight to the ancient legend of Suvarnabhumi: 2,000-year-old gold rings recently unearthed at Don Yai Thong bearing ancient Brahmi inscriptions (‘Pusarakhitasa’) - Sanskrit for ‘the one protected by Pushya,’ a reference to an auspicious constellation in ancient Indian astronomy. Thailand’s Fine Arts Department believes the jewellery belonged to an ancient Indian merchant, offering tangible evidence of maritime trade between India and Southeast Asia dating back two millennia.

“There is a legend in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar - that an Indian prince travelled across the ocean to the land we call Suvarnabhumi, the golden land. He married a local princess and a new kingdom emerged. The legend may have truth to it,” Mr. Torsak noted during the deliberations.

During their official stay, the students visited the ancient capital of Ayutthaya - a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose very name echoes India’s sacred city of Ayodhya, and whose ruins stand as testimony to the battles and fires that repeatedly tried to erase it from history. At the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, they found weavers and artisans working at handlooms in real time - weaving heritage with every thread - an encounter that deepened their conviction in the proposed Muga silk artisan residency between Sualkuchi and Chiang Mai.

“It was an unreal feeling to stand in the Ministry and realise that what we learned from our elders in Assam is living history in Thailand,” said Neeraj Sarmah.