In 1821 Bagyidaw, the Burmese Emperor sent his greatest General, Thado Maha Bandula, along with a force of 10,000 strong army and 500 horses for the final offensive on Assam and after the successful invasion, Assam became a Burmese province under a military Governor-General forcing the Swagadeo (King) of Ahom to retreat along with the Ahom nobles including the Buragohains (Prime Ministers) to Goalpara (Assam).
The East India Company then, in order to prevent the marauding Burmese from attacking the Company’s border territory of Rangpur (Bengal), adjoining to Goalpara, decided to separate Assam’s Goalpara from Bengal’s Rangpur and in December of that same year appointed David Scott as the Civil Commissioner of the newly created District of North-East Rangpur, which also included the Garo Hills with a salary of Rs.40,000 per annum (Myint, Gait & Barooah).
The Burmese aggression forced Lord William Pitt Amherst, the Governor-General to formally declare war on the kingdom of Ava (Burmese) on 5th March 1824. David Scott was immediately dispatched to seek the assistance of Ram Sing, the Jaintia Raja and also to request permission to allow the British troops to use the territories of the Jaintia kingdom. Ram Sing agreed in lieu of land lying East of Guwahati across the Kupli River, as cost for the assistance and a Treaty No. LXXIII was signed on 10th March, 1824 (Aitchinson).
However, Thado Maha Bandula and almost the entire Burmese army had been hastily recalled from Assam, on the specific intelligence gathered by the Burmese Court of the intended sea offensive planned by the British. Afterwards, when the Burmese army had already started leaving, David Scott, the civilian officer, led the march from Sylhet through the Jaintia kingdom and reached Noagong (Nowngong) on 15th April, 1824.
Another large British force from Sylhet under the command of Brigadier Shuldham marched through Kachar (Cachar) into Manipur with the planned offensive on Burma. A road was hastily constructed from Bhadrapur (Badarpur, Karimganj District, Assam) to Banskandy (Banskandi, Cachar District, Assam) to reach Manipur but with the onset of rainy season, the plan was abandoned and the British forces returned.
However, Gambhir Singh, the Manipur Raja, who accompanied the British along with 500 of his men, then requested to allow him to recover Manipur. Lieutenant Pemberton volunteered to accompany the Raja and after a long march they successfully reclaimed Manipur without any resistance (Wilson).
Eventuallyafter nearly two years, the British won the war and by the Treaty of Yandabo, the Burmese agreed to cease interference in the affairs of the Jaintia kingdom, Kachar, Assam and cede to the British their provinces of Manipur, Arakan and Tenasserim. Even though the British won the war but the victory cost a fortune to the British exchequer then, amounting to about 5 million pounds or 10 billion pounds today (Myint) (Rs 1.0342 lakh crores)
After the war, David Scott reported about the abundance of wild tea plants all over Upper Assam surveyed by Charles Alexander Bruce (brother of Robert Bruce). David Scott, who had marched through the Jaintia kingdom, again managed to secure the permission of the Jaintia Raja for road construction from Sylhet to Noagong (Nowgong) but the toll imposed by the Jaintia Raja on all goods carrying boats at the chokey ghat in Chappermukh (Chaparmukh, Nagaon District, Assam) put a lot of strain on the tricky relationship with the British.
On 13th April, 1830, a request was made to remove the chokey but Ram Sing refused to oblige pointing out that it was established since time immemorial and David Scott himself had call for restoration of the chokey when the Burmese had ravaged Assam (Bareh).
Unfortunately, Raja Ram Sing died on 25th September, 1832 and he was succeeded by his nephew, Rajendra (Indro) Sing, then, just 16 years old. In October 1832, the new Raja was given two months’ time to remove the Chokey but young Rajendra Sing did not comply. In the same year, Lord Bentinck sent Captain Jenkins to Sudiya (Sadiya, Tinsukia District, Assam) to report about the resources of Assam.
Subsequently, after the report of abundance of wild tea plants in Assam and neighbouring territories of the Jaintia Raja in the Northern Jaintia kingdom, a Committee was formed in January 1834 to study the benefit of introducing tea plant and the Committee reported that tea if exported to European market would fetch the Company an estimated amount of £ 2 – 3 million (Rs 2,600 – 3,900 crores) per annum (Smith, 1839).
Meanwhile, Chuttur Sing, the Gobha Raja was accused of sacrificing three British subjects on the specific order of Ram Sing, the (late) Jaintia Raja (Pemberton). The bizarre accusation reached Fort William and the authorities were excited by this sensational news as the Jaintia Raja was known to possess more than a million square acres of land in the North administered by the Gobha Raja and plain fertile Southern Parganas with wild tea plants growing in abundance.
A British Court of Justice was set up and all the accused were arrested but after a thorough inquiry, it was found that the Gobha Raja at that time was Sobha Sing not Chuttur Singh, as alleged, and moreover Gobha was no longer under the jurisdiction of Ram Sing. Further, the Court found the only witness to this barbaric episode to be totally unreliable and had made false accusations against Ram Sing (Bareh & Giri).
Even though, the court found the accusation to be baseless, Lord Bentinck, nevertheless, under pressure from the tea lobbyists, proclaimed vide Order No. 10 (b) dated 23 February, 1835 to annex all the plain territories of the Jaintia Rajas situated in Shilot (Sylhet), Kachar (Cachar) and Nowgong (Nagaon) to the East India Company leaving only the hill portions of Jaintia (Bareh). Young Rajendra (Indro) refused the offer, saying that by confiscation of all his plains territories, the British had snatched away his rice bowl (Giri).
According to oral narratives, the sudden annexation of the vast fertile rice field’s Parganas lying in the South of the Jaintia kingdom along the Surma River, forced thousands of War Jaintias and Pnar clans to fled to every nook and corner of the Khasi Jaintia Hills and brutal confiscation of the vast field in the North compelled the indigenous Mikir (Karbi), Lalung (Tiwa), Hadem (Kuki) tribes to seek refuge in Khasi Jaintia and Ri Bhoi Hills. The Company’s soldiers looted large amounts of gold and precious ornaments, stacked them in gunny bags and took them to Chattak (Chhatak, Sylhet Division, Bangladesh).
The seizure list of grossly under-estimated valuable items given by Lister included five gunny bags containing 1,000 Mohor-ksiar (gold coins) each estimated at Rs 12,750, one gunny bag containing 54 Shan-Mohor (silver coins) estimated at Rs 16,000, 20 seers and 37 sicca weight of gold plate ornaments (1 seer = 80 tolas 1 sicca= 11.64 grams), 28 seers of silver ornaments, 18 large and small size gold and coral necklaces, 61 large and small sized silver and coral necklaces and other ornaments, 3,000 Assam rupees equal to Rs 2,000, 95,000 Sicca rupee (Sicca rupee is a currency of the East India Company), 10,200 Jynteah perie rupees (1 Sicca = 8 Jynteah perie rupees).
The actual amount looted by the colonial British may have run into several crores of rupees but successive colonial officers like Allen, Gurdon, Gait, etc in order to justify the inhumane action of their supreme government cruelly turning acreage of rice fields extending, beyond the eye can see, into monstrous tea garden started instead, releasing periodic pseudo-history books about the Jaintia kingdom to undermine the territorial authority of the Jaintias.
The Jaintia Rajas who were the rulers of a vast kingdom were portrayed and stereotype as mountaineer chiefs, fierce marauders plundering the plains when in fact they were the landlord and even, cruelly depicted as truculent, blood thirsty savage accustomed to human sacrifice despite the fact the British Court found no evidence and sadly even to this day, the pseudo-history books of the colonial British continue to stigmatize the noble names of the Jaintia Rajas.
At present, large tea gardens, some with unknown owners, continue to prosper in Assam and Bangladesh cruelly testifying to the brutal seizure of farm land belonging to the indigenous people, who were once the proud owners of these fertile paddy fields but were compelled then to eat the bark of Dieng-Tlai (Sago Palm) and Sohriew (Job’s Tears) just to survive and now their descendants are living as landless peasants in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, struggling even to get two square meals a day while those who remained steadfast are now languishing in Bangladesh and Assam border living in perpetual fear of losing their ancestral land.
Reference:
1. U Myint Thant, 2006 – The River of Lost Footsteps–Histories of Burma.
2. C. U. Aitchinson, 1872 – A collection of Treatise, Engagements and Sanads.
3. Nirode K Barooah, 1970 – David Scott in North-East India 1802-1831.
4. Sir Edward Gait, 1905 reprint 2018 – A history of Assam.
5. Horace Hayman Wilson, 1852 – The Burmese war.
6. Smith, Elder, 1839 – Assam: Sketch of its History, Soil and Productions
7. Dr. Hamlet Bareh Ngapkynta, 1967 reprint 2016 – The history and culture of the Khasi people.
8. Dr. Helen Giri, 2012 – The Khasis under the British rule (1824-1947)
