By H H Mohrmen
On the occasion of the death anniversary of u Kiang Nangbah, this article take a new look at what this monumental event in history meant for the Jaiñtia kingdom.
The first British expedition against the Jaiñtias was in February 1774 and the cause of the conflict was because the Jaiñtia people obstructed and taxed the traders who were British subjects while they were travelling on their boats down the river Surma to Dacca. The Jaiñtia kingdom under king Chatra Singha exacted tolls from the traders who were under the East India Company domain and the British saw this as an attack on the empire. The British attacked the Jaiñtia kingdom and in spite of the strong opposition from the Jaiñtias, they were defeated, but the British refused to annex the kingdom to the empire (SM Ali History of Jaintia Hills).
The story of the Jaiñtia Kings performing human sacrifice is still being told in the hills portion of the kingdom. The local narrative has it that the sacrifice was offered in the river Kupli but there are also stories of human sacrifices being performed at the temple in Nartiang and even in Borkhat. On the banks of the river near the temple at Borkhat, a wall still stands which is believed to be the altar from where the sacrifices were performed. There is no doubt that in the past the Jaiñtia kings performed human sacrifices which also became the major cause of the collapse of the kingdom.
In 1821 three subjects of the Jaiñtia kingdom were caught in Sylhet district while attempting to kidnap a British subject to be offered as a sacrifice to Kali. They were tried and punished by the British. Again in 1832 it was alleged that four British subjects were kidnapped from Assam and one of the kidnapped managed to escape while the other three were sacrificed in a temple in the Gobah territory which was ruled by a vassal under the Jaiñtia king. British government wrote to the Jaiñtia king to surrender the guilty person for trial, but since he refused to do so on March 15, 1835 Captain Lister led an expedition of two companies of Sylhet light infantry in the company of Harry Inglish. The next day on March 16, 1835, the treacherous Harry Inglish cunningly used his proximity to the Raja to dupe the king and the British were able to subdue the Jaiñtias and on the same day the kingdom was annexed to the British Empire (ibid).
There are two reasons for bringing this point in this write up. First, the Kiang Nangbah led rebellion against the British was the third and the last encounter that the Jaiñtias had with the British and in fact it was the battle which marked the end of the kingdom. The second reason is to place u Ksan Nangbah maternal uncle of u Kiang Nangbah who was believed to have led the Jaiñtia fight against the British before u Kiang. According to oral narrative u Ksan was killed in the Jaiñtia fight against the British, but according to Ali, Jaiñtia kingdom was treacherously annexed to the British Empire, and although his army wanted to fight but the king prevented them from doing so. And because the Jaiñtias surrendered without a fight in 1835, therefore if oral tradition is to believed then u Ksan must have fought the British in the first battle of the Jaiñtias against the empire.
Coming back to the last battle of the Pnar, according to oral narrative one of the causes that sparked the rebellion was the decision of the British government to impose house tax on its hills subject. The British felt that they were within their rights to impose taxes on their subjects and instructed all the dalois to start collecting the tax. There are few dalois who rebelled yet some of them owed allegiance to the empire. The story of the Daloi of Jwai, u Manik Pakynteiñ is one such story. In spite of the opposition from the people, the daloi also known as daloi Tyngker (perhaps because of his height) deliberately picked ka Lakhi Pyrding a woman who has no male family members to protect her, who also belonged to the same Sookpoh clan like him to impose the alien tax. But u Kiang Nangbah also belongs to the same Sookpoh clan who encountered the daloi on her behalf.
The other cause of the Jaiñtia rebellion was the interference of the British with the funeral of a woman who belonged to the Sumer clan. The funeral procession was stopped by the British and they were not allowed to cremate the dead body. The Pnars considered this as an insult to their tradition and an unpardonable offence.
The confiscation of weapons by Soorke Naib Darogah of the Jowai Police Station used for preparation of the traditional warrior dance of the people of raid Ïalong which is known as ‘ka pastieh kai ksoo’ is another major cause of the revolt. (Memorandum of Capt BWD Murton DC Khasi and Jaiñtia hills to Major JC Haughton 28, August 1862). The Pnar considered this to be a sacrilege and decided to fight the British to save the honour of their religion. According to oral tradition the attack on the police station at Jwai was the first act of revolt against the British by the Pnars. But according to Capt BWD Murton, the murder of two dak-runners who carried messages from Nartiang to Shilliang Myntang, was considered to be the first act of revolt by the Pnars, as it turned out that the murdered were not only dak-runners but they were in fact British soldiers. It may also be noted that in the revolt led by U Kiang Nangbah, it was only the Pnars who rose against the British and the battle ground where the guerrilla warfare was fought was in the hills portion of the Kingdom only, and there were no records of revolt by the plain subjects of the kingdom.
Therefore, another way of looking at the revolt was that it marked the end of the glorious reign of the Jaiñtia kingdom. After the kingdom was annexed, the kings who then lived in Jaiñtiapur still nurtured a hope of reclaiming the throne, but it was only after the rebellion that they were moved from Jaiñtiapur to Dhaka, perhaps to thwart any chance of influencing their hills subject from organising any further revolt against the British raj.
The kingdom has its own rise and fall; its soldiers fought against the Ahoms in the last part of the year 1707 and suffered defeat at the hands of King Naranarayan of the Koch who lived between 1540-86. At about the same time king Braj Manikya of Tripura invaded Jaiñtiapur and in the year 1615 the Jaiñtias fought a battle with the Kacharis. In 1664 they in turn attacked Sylhet. (Origin and early history of the Khasi-synteng people by Namita Catherine Shadap-Sen) The kingdom which was started by the Pnars and continued with many of its tradition including the matrilineal inheritance of the throne had its rise and fall. It may also be noted that to make certain that the bloodline of the hill tribes remained, the kings also ensured that their sister married Pnar men from the different region of the hills part of the kingdom.
Therefore, the last battle of the Pnar was led by a common man or in other words, it is a people-led rebellion because at that point of time, the kingdom was already part of the British Empire as the king had lost his throne. The titular king lost his power after 1835 and the demand at the later stage of the revolt to reinstate the king, became futile when the rebellion of the Pnars was crushed. U Kiang’s last words should also be looked at from the fact that the defeat was the coming down of the curtains on the great Jaiñtia kingdom; the fall of the proud Jaiñtia rule over the hills and plains. It was the last battle of the great Jaiñtia kingdom which was established as per historical records in 1500. On the occasion of the 157th anniversary of the execution of u Kiang Nangbah by the British government, his death in 1862 can also be seen as the end of the more than 300 golden years of the Jaiñtia kingdom and the last opportunity to save that kingdom.