Assam History

Ancient Assam

Before the arrival of Mongolians from north of the Himalayas, the entire area was a part of ancient India. The region that comprises Assam and the adjoining areas was called Prakjyotisha in ancient times, as mentioned in the Indian epic of Mahabharata. The land was populated by kiratas and chinas. Prakjyotisha Pura was the capital of ancient Kamarupa, according to Purana.

Medieval Assam

Medieval Assam was known as Kamarupa or Kamata, and was ruled by many dynasties. Chief among them was the Varman Dynasty. During the rule of the greatest of the Varman kings, Bhaskarvarman, a contemporary of Harshavardhana of Kanauj, the Chinese traveler Xuanzang visited the region, and recorded his travels. The other dynasties that ruled the region were the Kacharis, the Chutias etc. that belonged to the Indo-Tibetan groups.

Two later kingdoms left the biggest impact in the region. The Ahoms, a Tai group, ruled eastern Assam for 600 years; and the Koch, a Tibeto-Burmese/Dravidian group that ruled western Assam and northern Bengal. The Koch kingdom later split into two. The western kingdom became a vassal of the Moghuls whereas the eastern kingdom became an Ahom satellite state.

In spite of numerous invasions from the west, mostly by Muslim rulers, no western power could establish its rule in Assam until the advent of the British. The most successful invader was Mir Jhumla, a governor of Aurangzeb, who briefly occupied Gargaon the then capital of the Ahoms (1662-1663). He found it difficult to control the people, who carried on guerilla attacks on his forces and forced his army to leave the region. The last attempt by the Moghuls under the command of Raja Ram Singh resulted in the victory for the Ahoms at Saraighat (1671) under the Ahom general Lachit Borphukan.

British conquest

Ahom palace intrigue (and political turmoil resulting from the Moamoria rebellion) aided the expansionist Burmese ruler of Ava to invade Assam and install a puppet king in 1821. With the Burmese having reached the doorsteps of the East India Company's borders, the First Anglo-Burmese War ensued, in which Assam was one of the sectors. The war ended with the Treaty of Yandaboo in 1826, and the East India Company took control of the region.

Under British Administration, Assam was made a part of the British India province called the Bengal Presidency. Sometime about 1905-1912, Assam was separated and erected as a separate province of Assam.

At the time of independence of India, it consisted of the original Ahom kingdom, the present-day Arunachal Pradesh (North East Frontier Agency), Naga Hills, original Kachari kingdom, Lushai Hills, and Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills. Of the Assam province on the eve of Independence, Sylhet choose to join Pakistan in a referendum; and the two princely states Manipur and Tripura became Group C provinces. The capital was Shillong.

Post independence

After the independence from British rule in 1947, Assam spawned four more states to become one of the seven sister states in the 1960s and 1970s. The new states were Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. The capital of Assam, which was in Shillong, had to be moved to Dispur, now a part of an expanding Guwahati.

When the leaders of Assam tried to establish Assamese as the official language, the Cachar district, which is populated by a predominantly dominant Bengali speaking people, Wanted the right to study Bengali in school, college and other religious institutions. Because not only Assamese is a comparatively new language with doubtful literary works but also as analysts feel it does not have anything substantial to offer to readers and students in any way. But the establishment tries to overlook the local resaoning and military fired hundred of rounds of bullets to inncoecnt people who assembled near the railway station for a peaceful meeting. More than 11 persons lost their life and women consisted a significant number. Miss. Kamala Bhattacharjee was the first to embrace the bullet. Barak Valeey and Bengalis all over the world still rememeber those innocents who lost their lives for their language.

In the 1980s the Brahmaputra valley saw a six-year Assam Agitation that began non-violently but became increasingly violent. The movement tried to force the government to identify and deport foreigners who, the natives maintained, are illegally inundating the land from neighboring Bangladesh and changing the demographics. Critics called it a xenophobic reaction of a racist people. The agitation ended after an accord between the leaders of the agitation and the Union Government. Most of the accord remains unimplemented today, a cause for a simmering discontent.

This was followed by demands for greater autonomy especially by the Bodos in the later 1980s and 1990s. The period also saw the growth of armed secessionist groups like United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB). The union government responded by deploying the Indian army to control the situation in November 1990, leading to claims of human rights violations. The Indian army deployment has now been institutionalized under a Unified Command. Worsening inter-ethnic relationships also marked this period.

The 2000s saw inter-ethnic killings, especially in the Karbi and Cachar hills (e.g the Hmar-Dimasa conflict).