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98. North Cachar, the tract of thinly-people, low, undulating hills divided from the valley of the Barak by the range of the Barail and interposed between the Jaintia and the Naga Hills, has already been briefly referred to in the section dealing with Cachar. When the district was under native rule, during the last years of the reign of Govind Chandra, this portion of it was the scene of a struggle between that prince and one of his officers, named Kacha Din (called Kohee Dan by Colonel Butler, Mills "Assam Report" page clxiii. Kacha Din is the name given by Pemberton, "Eastern Frontier", page 191.), who rebelled and endeavoured to establish an independent government in the hills. He was captured and put to death by Govind Chandra, but his son, Tularam, a chaprasi in the Raja's service, immediately revived the rebellion and in 1824 joined the Burmese in their attack on Cachar. After a series of years during which Tularam successfully held his own, Mr. Scott induced Govind Chandra in 1829 to assign to him a tract of country in the hills and bind himself not to molest him within these limits. After the assassination of the Raja of Cachar, Tularam was a candidate for the vacant throne, but failed to establish his title. In 1835 he entered into an agreement with the British Government in which he resigned all the western portion of the tract ceded by Govind Chandra, retaining the tract on the east bounded on the south by the Mahur river and the Naga Hills, on the west by the Diyung, on the east by the Dhansiri and on the north by the Jamuna and Diyung. For this he was to pay a tribute of four pairs of elephants' tusks annually receiving a monthly pension of Rs.50. Tularam died in October 1850. His sons Nakulram and Braja Nath held the country for two and a half years more when the former was killed in the Naga Hills, whither he had led an expedition to avenge an attack on his village of Semkhor, and in 1854 the tract was resumed by the British Government, the surviving members of Tularam's family receiving pensions. |
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In 1839 the portion of North Cachar not included in Tularam's dominions was annexed to Nowgong, and in 1853 a separate officer was placed in charge of the subdivision with his headquarters at Asalu near the northern skirts of the Barail, whose business it was to keep order among the Kukis and Arung Nagas dwelling in this neighbourhood and to protect them against the Angami Nagas to the east who were constantly making raids into this country and that held by Tularam. In 1854 that officer's charge was augmented by the addition of Tularam's principality. |