By Rev. Lyndan Syiem
Today is Thomas Jones Day, which is being observed in the seven districts of the Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills. Much has been written in this newspaper about this pioneer Welsh missionary who arrived at Sohra on 22 June, 1841. He was followed by five generations of missionaries, 152 on record: pastors, teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, as well as missionary wives, whose efforts resulted in the present day Presbyterian Church in the Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills, with its almost eight lakh members. This article is a brief discussion on the East India Company’s expansion into North East India and the vexed question of colonialism and mission.
One result of the famous Battle of Plassey in 1757 was the Company acquiring exclusive trading rights in Bengal and control of Sylhet, on the Surma river. Before the arrival of the British, the Khasi-Jaiñtia tribe had been politically independent and generally isolated in their 4000-5000 foot highlands. The foothills were covered with thick tropical jungles and malarial swamps, but the plateau above possessed temperate forests and lush grasslands. The Company coveted this plateau for its climate, its mineral resources and its strategic location between the Brahmaputra valley in the North and the Surma plains in the South.
The people in the Jaiñtia, Sohra and Ri War regions already had trade and cultural relations with Bengal in the South; contact with Assam in the North was then minimal. In 1765, the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II granted the Diwani of Bengal to the Company, which entailed revenue rights in Bengal. Enforcement of revenue collection in the Sylhet region led to the first contact between the British and the Khasis. The initial meetings were soon followed by jurisdictional conflicts with the Khasi kings, who ruled the foothills and claimed the plains North of the Surma, and the Jaiñtia king who ruled the plains North of Sylhet.
The Khasis used to come down to the Pandua trading post on the plains to barter their fruits, coal, iron, ivory, wax and honey in exchange for rice, salt, fresh fish, dried fish, cotton and silk from Bengal. Limestone mined at Sohra yielded slaked lime for mineral-deficient Bengal and provided mortar for the majestic buildings in colonial Calcutta. Very soon, Company officials began their private trade in limestone and other lucrative goods. All these commercial, administrative and strategic interests would eventually culminate in the British occupation of the Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills.
Meanwhile in Western Bengal, the Baptist Mission was established in 1799, at Serampore, on the banks of the Hooghly river, upstream of Calcutta. Serampore was then a colony of the King of Denmark, being known as Fredriksnagore from 1755 to 1845. At that time, the East India Company discouraged Christian missionaries in its territories. So although the Baptist missionary, William Carey, lectured on a government salary at Fort William, he was not allowed to construct his mission buildings at Calcutta but only at Serampore. Carey (1761-1834) had come from England in 1793 and baptized his first convert, Krishna Chandra Pal, in 1800.
K.C. Pal (1764-1822) ministered for some time at Pandua and on 7 April, 1813, he baptized the first two Khasi converts, U Anna and U Duwan. So the first missionary to the Khasis was not a Westerner but a Bengali. Encouraged by Pal’s work, Carey translated the New Testament into the Khasi language using the Bengali script. It was released in 1824, with an initial print of 500 copies. Unfortunately, Carey’s Khasi New Testament was full of grammatical and linguistic errors; this however does not detract from its record as the first Khasi book ever published.
The Company’s eastward expansion collided with a resurgent Burma’s westward expansion into Manipur and Cachar. War broke out in 1824 and ended in a decisive British victory over Burma in 1826. The resultant Treaty of Yandabo on 24 February, 1826, resulted in Assam’s annexation into the Bengal Presidency. The Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills were now sandwiched between two British territories: the Brahmaputra valley in the North and the plains of Sylhet in the South. Conquest and loss of independence was imminent.
On 1 November, 1826, the wily David Scott, Governor General’s Agent and Commissioner of Assam, entered the Khasi Hills to ‘request’ the Syiem of Nongkhlaw, U Tirot Singh, to allow construction of a road between Gauhati and Sylhet, with a large section through his Kingdom. On 3 November, 1826, Tirot Singh assented to an agreement whereby:
1. Nongkhlaw voluntarily submitted to the ‘protection’ of the Company.
2. Free passage of British troops between Gauhati and Sylhet through Nongkhlaw.
3. Assistance, with due payment, in providing construction materials for the road and for its maintenance and repair.
David Scott subsequently dictated similar one-sided treaties with all the Khasi rulers. The Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills were therefore insidiously occupied in the period 1826-1830, with David Scott as a sort of ‘Robert Clive of the Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills.’ Sohra became the capital because of its strategic location, its rich mineral deposits, its commercial importance, and its King, Dewan Singh’s compliance.
It was at Sohra that 18 year old Alexander B. Lish arrived in 1832. This second missionary to the Khasis was an Anglo-Indian from Calcutta, sent by the Baptist Mission. Lish (1814-1852) quickly learnt Khasi and established three schools at Sohra, Mawsmai and Mawmluh. He went to Calcutta in 1833, taking several Khasis to visit that great city. Lish returned in 1834 with two associates and was making steady progress when the fledgling mission inexplicably left Sohra in 1838. The result of Krishna Chandra Pal and Alexander B. Lish’s premature departure is that the majority of Khasis today are not Baptists but Presbyterians.
Presbyterianism arrived with Thomas Jones (1810-1849), whose life and career may be perused in a 2018 Shillong Times article, “Why Celebrate Thomas Jones Day?” My post-script to that article is that while British colonialism brought Jones to the Khasi-Jaiñtia Hills, it was the same colonialism that killed him at 39 years of age. After leaving the Welsh mission in 1847, Jones supported himself by trading. At that time, the Sohra-Sylhet trade was monopolized by Harry Inglis and his father in law and Political Agent, Captain Lister. Thomas Jones challenged this monopoly and paid the price. He was harassed, persecuted and pursued by Inglis and Lister, and had to flee from place to place till he contracted malaria and died at Calcutta on 16 September, 1849.