The first record of any European having crossed the Khasi Hills from one valley to the other is that of the journey made in 1824 by David Scott, the Agent to the Governor-General on the North East Frontier with headquarters at Sylhet. In 1826 the Syiem of Nongkhlaw was persuaded by David Scott to allow the construction of a road across the Khasi Hills. In 1833 Cherrapunji was established as the headquarters of the hills districts. For the next twenty years all effort was concentrated on establishing communication between Cherra and Sylhet.
Tag: Archive
One of the first ethnographic accounts of Ka Shad and Pomblang of Hima Khyrim was by Fr. Christoph E Becker SDS who served as the…
Published in 1864 ‘Papers relating to the Disturbances in the Cossyah and Jynteeah-Hills’ is a classic colonial administrative report on the indigenous insurrections in Khasi Jaintia Hills. Model for all the contemporary Sarkari reports on people’s resistances. Long buried in the libraries, this text has made careers of many a historians. If you are interested in insurrection Kiang Nangbah, you have trawl through this text to know the colonial version of the events. Raiot will be putting in public domain many of the key archival historical document relating to the history of our hills. Download – it goes without saying.
This article was first published in Sunday Vol. 10 Issue 33, 6 -12 March 1983. Sunday, was a political weekly published from Kolkata by Ananda Bazaar Patrika group and M J Akbar was its founding editor. Dr. Hiren Gohain’s essay is reproduced here for educational purpose from the private collection of Guwahati based senior journalist and commentator Haidar Hussain.
In 1925, Survey of India as part of its Indian city map series published a guide map of Shillong – now Raiot offers it to you for free download
Some of the Raiots love mucking about in the archives. This amateur film, most probably shot by a visiting doctor is taken from Wellcome Library Moving…
Published in 1864 ‘Papers relating to the Disturbances in the Cossyah and Jynteeah-Hills’ is a classic colonial administrative report on the indigenous insurrections in Khasi Jaintia Hills. Model for all the contemporary Sarkari reports on people’s resistances. Long buried in the libraries, this text has made careers of many a historians. If you are interested in insurrections of Tirot Sing and Kiang Nangbah, you have trawl through this text to know the colonial version of the events. Raiot will be putting in public domain many of the key archival historical document relating to the history of our hills. Download – it goes without saying.
A book review Ramchandra Guha may want to forget
Ramachandra Guha is among Indias’ most visible intellectuals, and his newspaper columns and television appearances mark him off from the more reticent world of academic historians. At 900 pages his new book India after Gandhi is not shy of claiming its own space on the bookshelf: from it’s title page, where it announces itself as “The History of the World’s Largest Democracy” (not A History, mind you, but The History); to it’s end papers, which tells us that the author’s entire career seems in retrospect to have been preparation for the writing of this book.
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