Silchar is a city and the headquarters of the Cachar district of the state of Assam, India. It is second largest city of Assam after Guwahati in terms of population and GDP. It is located 343 kilometres (213 mi; 185 nmi) south east of Guwahati. It was founded by Captain Thomas Fisher in 1832 when he shifted the headquarters of Cachar to Janiganj in Silchar. It earned the moniker "Island of Peace" from Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. Silchar is the site of the world's first polo club and the first competitive polo match. In 1985, an Air India flight from Kolkata to Silchar became the world's first all-women crew flight. Silchar was a tea town and Cachar club was the meeting point for tea planters.
The city was founded in Janiganj-Sadarghat area of the town near the Barak bank which was used as a river port. It is theorised that the locals started calling the area 'Shiler Chor' meaning the rocky shore, which got shortened to 'Silchar', which was in turn adopted and popularised by the British.
Since Silchar was only founded after the introduction of the British in 1832, the pre-colonial history of Silchar can be approximated through the history of the region and nearby areas.
Tippera, Koch, and Dimasa rule
Cachar district, whose headquarters is in Silchar, was ruled by the Manikya dynasty in the 13th century. The initial capital of the kingdom was in Khalangsha in Cachar, which has been identified as Rajghat village in Sonai, 18 km from Silchar. The Tippera eventually moved eastwards to present day Tripura. By the 16th century, Cachar was a part of the Tripura kingdom.
The Tippera kings continued their rule in Barak Valley till mid-16th century, when commander Chilarai of the Koch dynasty defeated the king of Tripura in 1562 in Longai. Longai became the boundary between the Tripura and Koch kingdoms. Bir Chilarai, also known as Shukladhwaja, was the younger brother of the Koch king Nara Narayan. Gosai Kamal, also known as Kamal Narayan, was another brother of Naranarayan. He was made the governor of Barak Valley and ruled the area from Khaspur, 20 km away from Silchar.
Even after the collapse of the Koch kingdom elsewhere, the Koch continued ruling Cachar from Khaspur. The area was ruled by seven more Koch kings after Gosai Kamal: Udita Singha, Dhir Singha, Mehendra Singha, Ranjit Singha, Nara Singha and Bhim Singha. Bhim Singha, the last Koch Raja of Khaspur, only had a daughter called Kanchani who was married off to Prince Laksmichandra of the Kachari Dimasa kingdom of Maibang in 1745. Maibang is in present-day hill district of Dima Hasao, adjacent to Cachar. Laksmichandra was made the governor of a part of the kingdom which is still named after him - Lakhipur, situated 25 km away from Silchar. Laksmichandra became the Raja after Bhim Singha's death and eventually the two kingdoms were merged and present day Cachar came under Dimasa rule. Under the Dimasa kings, Cachar witnessed attacks from the Mughals, the Jaintias, the Manipuri kings, the Burmese, and the Ahoms.
Bengali presence in the Kachari Kingdom
While the hill areas of the Kachari kingdom i.e. Dima Hasao, had a Dimasa stronghold, the plain areas i.e. present day Cachar had Bengalis constituting the majority. While Bengalis had been inhabiting Cachar before the Koch rule, the Dimasa kings encouraged increased migration of Bengalis from nearby areas as priests, cultivators, and ministers at court. Eventually, the formal conversion of Dimasa kings into Hinduism was carried out under Bengali Brahmins when Raja Krishna Chandra and Raja Govinda Chandra performed the Hiranyagarbha ceremony in 1790.
The kings in turn were great patrons of Bengali literature; Bengali was the court language of the Kachari kings, translation of Sanskrit texts into Bengali was carried out, and the kings themselves composed prose and poetry in Bengali. In fact some of the only surviving written examples of the Bengali tradition in later 18th and early 19th century Cachar are the 27 letters written by Raja Krishna Chandra and Raja Gobinda Chandra to the East India Company.
Burmese Invasion and the Treaty of Badarpur
After taking over parts of the Brahmaputra Valley and Manipur by 1823, the Burmese made forays into Cachar as well. The then Governor General of India, Lord William Amherst, saw the British occupation of Cachar as essential towards guarding the nearby British held district of Sylhet from the Burmese. On 6 March 1824, Gobinda Chandra signed the Treaty of Badarpur with the British, who declared Cachar as a British protectorate and recognised Raja Gobinda Chandra as the ruler of Cachar.
The Burmese army attacked Cachar in 1824 and the British declared war on them. Eventually, the two armies clashed in the Burmese stronghold of Dudpatil, 15 km from Silchar and the British were able to drive the Burmese away to Manipur in 1825. The clash in Cachar was the start of the First Anglo-Burmese War, which ended with the Treaty of Yandabo, wherein the Kingdom of Ava agreed to stop attacking Cachar, amongst other areas. Gobinda Chandra was reinstated on the throne but had to pay an annual tribute of Rs.10,000 to the British as per the Treaty of Badarpur, which adversely affected the post-Burmese occupation Cachar's economy.
Gobinda Chandra was assassinated without any heir on 24 April 1830. Though Gambhir Singh of Manipur, who was suspected to be behind the assassination, laid claim on Cachar, it passed onto British hands as per the Treaty of Badarpur. Captain Thomas Fisher, an army officer took charge of Cachar on 30 June 1830 with the headquarters in Cherrapunji. On 14 August 1832 Cachar came under formal British occupation and in 1833 Silchar was made the headquarters. Cachar was part of the Bengal province from 1832 to 1874, when the district was transferred to the new Assam province.
There is no mention of any place called 'Silchar' before the annexation of Cachar. Its constituent areas such as Tarapur, Ambikapur, Kanakpur, and Rangpur have been mentioned as villages under Gobinda Chandra, but not 'Silchar'. The earliest mention of Silchar was in 1835 in a report by R.B. Pamberton, and since then it was mentioned in British official documents. Silchar was founded as the administrative headquarters of Cachar around the Janiganj-Sadarghat area of the town. After shifting the district headquarters to Silchar in 1832, Captain Fisher started building Sadar Station in Janiganj. Janiganj existed prior to the British as part of a taluk under the Mirasdars of Ambikapur before being taken over by Gobinda Chandra. In this respect, Captain Thomas Fisher was the founder of Silchar. The Sadar Station and the District Court are still located in and around present day Janiganj.
According to a theorist, Fisher's reasons for choosing Silchar as the administrative centre for Cachar included 'the strategic location of Silchar, its accessibility from Sylhet, availability of land and labour, approach routes to neighbouring hills and prospects of riverine commerce'. The establishment of the Sadar Station was followed by the construction of the treasury and a kutchery. A jail and a police outpost for the Sylhet Light Infantry was constructed in Fatak Bazar, while offices and residential quarters were made in Janiganj. Parts of Janiganj were also allotted to officers and traders.
John Edgars, the successor to Captain Fisher, added to the urban growth of the city. He prepared a blueprint for the planned development of Silchar, paved the roads, and supervised the construction of office buildings, residential quarters, circuit house and the Deputy Commissioner's office. The latter two still survive. Under him, the jail was shifted from Fatak Bazar to its present site, and traders from nearby areas in Bengal were encouraged to settle in the town. Communication facilities were strengthened with the steamer service between Silchar and Kolkata in 1850, the establishment of the Head Post Office in 1852, and the introduction of telegraph in 1861. While Tarapur, Malugram and Itkhola were part of the older settled areas, newer localities such as Central Road, Nazirpatty, Premtola, Tulapatty, and Narshingtola emerged.