From Our Reporter
DHAKA, Feb 17: The mystery behind the death of Khasi freedom fighter U Tirot Sing Syiem continues to elude one version of his demise mentions jail, while another says he died in the comfort of a “bungalow”.
Noted historian David Syiemlieh, who has done an extensive work on the life of the Khasi freedom fighter, has reaffirmed that U Tirot Sing Syiem did not die in jail in Dhaka but he died as a state prisoner.
However, there is a general consensus among the Khasis and Jaintias that he (U Tirot Sing Syiem) died in prison for the cause of freedom.
According to noted historian, the Khasi freedom fighter had a comfortable living since the British recognised him as a state prisoner.
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony of the commemorative statue of U Tirot Sing Syiem at the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre, Dhaka, on Friday, he said that his research on the last day of the Khasi freedom fighter started in January 1986.
He added that a letter to the editor dated 14th of May 1835 in the ‘Friends of India’, read at the National Library Kolkata, informed that Tirot Sing was provided comfortable living as a state prisoner in Dhaka.
“In January 1988, while on a Charles Wallace research grant for research at the end of his library records in London, I was fortunate to locate, read and take notes from reports of officials of the passing of U Tirot Sing Syiem,” Syiemlieh said.
According to him, many winters ago, he was in Dhaka, not far away from where he decided to visit the library of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh and later at the Bangladesh state archives.
“No clues came from any queries of processing at these repositories, other than some information in the archives of the names of prisoners, and the daily allowance given to them because the chief’s name was not listed in these records,” he said.
Syiemlieh said, “And I say very clearly that Tirot Sing Syiem did not die in jail. He died having been given a bungalow and a very comfortable living as a state prisoner”.
He said that in early 2009, while on another one of my annual visits to the libraries and records, he made a search for the additional information during the last days of the same thing at the National Archives of India, New Delhi and the West Bengal state archives.
The date of his surrender to the forces of the East India Company was January 1831, which coincided with the conclusion of the Khasi-Anglo war.
A recent exhumation of archived documents and letters proved the collective consensus wrong.
Apparently, U Tirot Sing Syiem neither died in prison nor did the war formally conclude in 1831.
Syiemlieh’s excavation of the piles of letters and documents written, mailed and sealed by personnel of the Company, which are located now in the archives of India and Britain, led to the reorientation of dates on the timeline.
On his visit to India Office Library and Records, London, he discovered, for the very first time, the date of the death of U Tirot Sing Syiem.
In a letter sent by SC Scott, Officiating Magistrate of the Foujdary Adalat, Dacca, on July 18, 1835, to the Officiating Commissioner of Circuit, Dacca, it was written: “The demise of the ex-Rajah Teeruth Sing, a state prisoner under my charge, which event took place yesterday at 1 pm”.
This implied that the U Tirot Sing died on the preceding day, the 17th of July, 1835.
The National Archives of India in Janpath, New Delhi, is another storehouse of answers, no matter how fragmentary, to Professor David Syiemlieh’s questions.
In a letter which he retrieved and which was sent by TC Robertson, the Agent to the Governor General, North Eastern Frontier, on the 12th of February 1833 to the Chief Secretary, Government of Bengal, there was a statement about the surrender of Tirot Sing in the presence of an accompanying retinue of 30 swordsmen and 11 musketmen, confirming the claim that the chief surrendered and was not captured.
He was accorded respectable lodging, and legend has it that he did not die in a prison cell, but probably in a place where he was provided treatment for a stomach ailment which is rumoured to have been the cause of his death.