The Ahom or Tai-Ahom is an ethnic group from the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The members of this group are admixed descendants of the Tai people who reached the Brahmaputra valley of Assam in 1228 and the local indigenous people who joined them over the course of history. Sukaphaa, the leader of the Tai group and his 9,000 followers established the Ahom kingdom, which controlled much of the Brahmaputra Valley in modern Assam until 1826.
Kamarupa, an early state during the Classical period on the Indian subcontinent, was the first historical kingdom of Assam.
The history of Assam is the history of a confluence of people from the east, west, south and the north; the confluence of the Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan), Tai and Indo-Aryan cultures. Although invaded over the centuries, it was never a vassal or a colony to an external power until the third Burmese invasion in 1821, and, subsequently, the British ingress into Assam in 1824 during the First Anglo-Burmese War.
Timeline of the History of Assam, the important dates in its history against important events elsewhere.
The Assam Movement (1979–1985) was a popular uprising in Assam, India, that demanded the Government of India detect, disenfranchise and deport illegal aliens. Led by All Assam Students Union (AASU) and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) the movement defined a six-year period of sustained civil disobedience campaigns, political instability and widespread ethnic violence. The movement ended in 1985 with the Assam Accord.
The Moamoria rebellion (1769–1805) was an 18th-century uprising in Ahom kingdom of present-day Assam that began as power struggle between the Moamorias (Mataks), the adherents of the Mayamara Sattra, and the Ahom kings. This uprising spread widely to other sections of Ahom kingdom including disgruntled elements of the Ahom aristocracy leading to two periods in which the Ahom king lost control of the capital. Retaking the capital was accompanied by a massacre of subjects, leading to a steep depopulation of large tracts. The Ahom king failed to retake the entire kingdom; a portion in the north-east, Bengmara, became known as Matak Rajya ruled by a newly created office called Borsenapati, became a tribute-paying but virtually independent territory.
Sukaphaa, also Siu-Ka-Pha, the first Ahom king in medieval Assam, was the founder of the Ahom kingdom and the architect of Assam. A prince of the Su/Tsu (Tiger) clan of the Mao-Shan sub-tribe originally from present-day Mong Mao, Yunnan Province, China, the kingdom he established in 1228 existed for nearly six hundred years and in the process unified the various ethnic groups of the region that left a deep impact on the region. In reverence to his position in Assam's history the honorific Chaolung is generally associated with his name.
The Ahom kingdom was a late medieval kingdom in the Brahmaputra Valley that retained its independence for nearly 600 years despite encountering Mughal expansion in Northeast India. Established by Sukaphaa, a Tai prince from Mong Mao, it began as a mong in the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra based on wet rice agriculture. It expanded suddenly under Suhungmung in the 16th century and became multi-ethnic in character, casting a profound effect on the political and social life of the entire Brahmaputra valley. The kingdom became weaker with the rise of the Moamoria rebellion, and subsequently fell to repeated Burmese invasions of Assam. With the defeat of the Burmese after the First Anglo-Burmese War and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, control of the kingdom passed into East India Company hands.
Borpatragohain was the third of the three great Gohains (counsellors) in the Ahom kingdom. This position was created by Suhungmung Dihingia Raja in the year 1527 when Konsheng was made the first Borpatrogohain. The designation was borrowed from Vrihat-patra, the Habung dependent of the Chutiya king.
The People of Assam inhabit a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-religious society. They speak languages that belong to four main language groups: Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan, Tai-Kadai, and Austroasiatic. The large number of ethnic and linguistic groups, the population composition, and the peopling process in the state has led to it being called an "India in miniature".
Habung is a historical region in present-day Lakhimpur district of Assam, India, although Tai-ahom claim it to be a part of present-day Dhemaji district. As per epigrahic records, Habung (Ha-vrnga-Vishaya) was a vishaya or province where Brahmins were settled by Ratna Pala of the Pala dynasty of Kamarupa in the 10th century.
The Baro-Bhuyans were confederacies of soldier-landowners in Assam and Bengal in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The confederacies consisted of loosely independent entities, each led by a warrior chief or a landlord (zamindars). The tradition of Baro-Bhuyan is peculiar to both Assam and Bengal and differ from the tradition of Bhuihar of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar—in Assam this phenomenon came into prominence in the 13th century when they resisted the invasion of Ghiyasuddin Iwaj Shah and in Bengal when they resisted Mughal rule in the 16th century.
The Assamese people are a socio-ethnic linguistic identity that has been described at various times as nationalistic or micro-nationalistic. This group is often associated with the Assamese language, the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, and Assamese people mostly live in the Brahmaputra Valley region of Assam, where they are native and constitute around 56% of the Valley's population. The use of the term precedes the name of the language or the people. It has also been used retrospectively to the people of Assam before the term "Assamese" came into use. They are an ethnically diverse group formed after centuries of assimilation of Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan and Tai populations, and constitute a tribal-caste continuum—though not all Assamese people are Hindus and ethnic Assamese Muslims numbering around 42 lakh constitute a significant part of this identity The total population of Assamese speakers in Assam is nearly 15.09 million which makes up 48.38% of the population of state according to the Language census of 2011.
Colonial Assam (1826–1947) refers to the period in the history of Assam between the signing of the Treaty of Yandabo and the Independence of India when Assam was under British colonial rule. The political institutions and social relations that were established or severed during this period continue to have a direct effect on contemporary events. The legislature and political alignments that evolved by the end of the British rule continued in the post Independence period. The immigration of farmers from East Bengal and tea plantation workers from Central India continue to affect contemporary politics, most notably that which led to the Assam Movement and its aftermath.
The Chutia Kingdom was a late medieval state that developed around Sadiya in present Assam and adjoining areas in Arunachal Pradesh. It extended over almost the entire region of present districts of Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, and some parts of Dibrugarh in Assam, as well as the plains and foothills of Arunachal Pradesh. The kingdom fell around the year 1524 to the Ahom Kingdom after a series of conflicts and the capital area ruled by the Chutia rulers became the administrative domain of the office of Sadia Khowa Gohain of the Ahom kingdom.
The earliest Indo-Aryan migration to Assam is estimated to have occurred between the 2nd century BCE and 1st century CE—not earlier than 500 BCE. The earliest epigraphic record suggests that the Indo-Aryan migration began latest by the middle of the 4th century CE. They came from the Gangetic Plains into a region already inhabited by people who spoke Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages.
Madan Kamdev is an archaeological site in Baihata Chariali, Kamrup, Assam. The place dates back to the 9th and 10th century A.D. The excavation and ruins is dated back to the Pala dynasty of Kamarupa.
Jalia Kaibarta is a community comprising people of low ritual status, fishermen, who later acquired respectable caste identities within the larger Hindu fold, helped by their commercial prosperity and Vaishnavite affiliations, through Sanskritisation. They are traditionally engaged in the occupation of fishing and originally belonged to Assam, West Bengal, Odisha and eastern Bihar along with Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan. The Kaibartas were initially considered a single tribe divided into two groups, Haliya and Jaliya Kaibarta, where the Haliya Kaibarta are considered to be superior than the latter. Jalia Kaibartas are categorised as a Scheduled Caste and are the second largest among the 16 SCs in Assam under the name Kaibartta, Jaliya. Many of the Jalia Kaibarta under the influence of Garamur satradhikar gave up their traditional occupation of fishing and divided themselves into – mach mara and mach na-mara.
Amalendu Guha was a eminent Marxist historian, poet and a littérateur from Assam.
The Phulaguri Uprising was an agrarian uprising in Phulaguri village in the Brahmaputra Valley, in October 1861 against the new income and farm taxation policies of the British Indian Empire following the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The murders of Lieutenant G B Singer and two police constables on 18 October 1861 led to mass reprisals in which at least 54 Assamese farmers were killed.
