North-East India Through the Ages

Abstract

For long, North-East India was a terra incognita firstly because of its physical isolation but no less because of its being in a remote corner of India far away from the early ruling dynasties which were confined largely to the Ganga plain. The earliest known kingdom in the region, known as Pragjyotish/Kamarupa, was established by the Varman dynasty in the third century AD. The most illustrious ruler of Assam in the pre-Ahom period was Bhaskarvarman (AD 594–650). Through a succession of dynasties, viz. Varman, Salastambha, Pala and Vaidyadeva, all of which have left their imprint on the region, the region passed in the hands of Ahoms who came to Assam in the early thirteenth century, from the Shan region of Myanmar, settled in the eastern part of Brahmaputra valley, and ruled over Assam for 600 years. During the medieval period, Assam developed as a distinct politico-cultural unit. The region suffered repeated invasions from the Nawabs of Bengal, but none of the invaders could establish a permanent foothold in the region. Some of them even suffered defeat and had to retreat. Besides the Ahoms who ruled over much of the Brahmaputra valley, there were other dynasties who ruled in other parts of the region. The Koches ruled over western Assam during the sixteenth century. The 600-year reign of Ahoms came to an end in the early nineteenth century with the arrival of the British who dislodged the Ahoms and occupied the Assamese territory. The British, besides establishing their rule and administering Assam, expanded the Assamese territory, before they quit India in 1947.

The state of Assam, in a series of administrative manoeuvres, was divided into four states, viz. Assam, the parent state, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Meghalaya. Besides, the two princely states of Tripura and Manipur were merged in the Indian Union and came into existence as independent states. Another territory, North-East Frontier states, sandwiched between the Himalayas and the Brahmaputra, was made into a full-fledged state of Arunachal Pradesh. Thus, the seven states of North-East India came into existence. These seven states constitute North-East India. Together, these states have an area of 255,000 km² and a population of 45 million.