A History of Assam c21.52

c21.52

In Cachar the hapless Gobind Chandra soon found himself involved in a sea of difficulties. In spite of every effort to expel him, Tulārām remained in possession of the hills. The latter was now growing old, and, in 1828, he entrusted the command of his troops to his cousin Gobind Rām, who, after defeating Gobind Chandra’s levies, abused the trust reposed in him and turned his arms against his patron. Tulārām fled to Jaintia, but in July 1829, with the aid of a Manipuri detachment, lent by Gambhir Singh, he ousted his ungrateful cousin, who in his turn fled to Dharampur and entered into an alliance with Gobind Chandra. At this stage David Scott induced the Kachāri Raja to recognize Tulārām as the ruler of a considerable tract of country in the hills. In spite of this, he soon afterwards instigated three separate attacks on him, but the Commissioner caused the persons concerned to be apprehended and confined, and thus put a stop to further attempts of the kind. In the rest of Gobind Chandra’s domain, there was no overt opposition to his rule, but he was equally unfortunate in other ways. During the troubled period which followed the death of Krishna Chandra, the Kukis had made constant raids, and the south of the district had in parts relapsed into jungle; while the depredations committed by the Burmese had left the rest of the country in a state of hopeless destitution. The Raja, however, was no sooner restored to the throne than he commenced a series of unsparing exactions on his own people. He almost killed the trade between Manipur and Sylhet by imposing the heaviest transit dues on all articles of merchandise. He behaved most tyrannically towards the Manipuris who had settled in his territory. His tribute also fell into arrears. It would have been impossible to allow this state of things to go on indefinitely, but in 1830, before matters had reached a climax, he died at the hands of a Manipuri assassin. He had no descendants, either lineal or adopted, and the country was annexed by a proclamation dated the 14th August 1832, “in compliance,” says Pemberton, writing three years later, “with the frequent and earnestly expressed wishes of the people.”