3.3 First Anglo-Khasi War

3.3      First Anglo-Khasi War

However, over time an undercurrent of dissatisfaction set in. Tirot suspected that the Company was making a scheme of territorial expansion. The high handedness of the military at Nongkhlaw and their harsh treatment of the inhabitants, made the people lose confidence in Scott.
Official records state that the beginning of the hostility was due to the false speech of a Bengalee Chuprassee, who in a dispute with the Cossyas, prior to Scott's coming up, had threatened them with his master's vengeance, and had plainly told them that it had entered his master's plan to subject them to taxation, the same as the inhabitants of the plains.

Cossyas complained that the soldiers took away articles and food without paying for them. Wood cutters and peasants were oppressed. The local labourers employed in the service of the Company were ill-treated. Such attitudes came from the arrogant and disgraceful behaviour of the lower ranks of soldiers. This led Tirot to conclude that the terms of the Treaty had not been properly observed by Scott. Matters came to a head when Scott openly sided with Bolaram, Syiem of Nongwah-Rani.

At this time, several headmen came forward and lodged their protest to Tirot that they were not consulted in the vital issue of road construction in their heartland. It was more than two and a half years since the road construction had begun. It was during the spring of 1829 that Scott came up to Nongkhlaw to supervise the work in a road survey. The people pressed Tirot to expel the foreigners and regain their freedom. Tirot could no longer bear the public pressure even though he would have liked the Treaty to be revised first and the provisions suitably amended.

In 1829 Tirot made wide designs to expel the aliens from his land. Tirot is said to have been deformed in one of his hands but that did not create impediments to his physical exertions in fighting the British. The pressure of the British military might resulted in the surrender of different Syiems one after another but he still stood an unconquered foe and resumed fighting alone until finally he was caught and deported to Dacca. The fighting lasted for four years (1829-1833).

In course of time, Tirot found that he was not the only victim. In fact Bor Manick of Shillong was subject to the same plight since the Company also clashed with him on the question of authority over the plain tract in Assam known as Khadar Bongthai or Desh Dimurua. In retaliation of these measures, Bor Manick in August 1828 marched down to Dimurua near Gauhati where he confiscated the revenue collected by the Company’s revenue officers. He also announced that he would occupy his lowlands during the next winter.

Disillusionment on the part of Tirot Sing was not long in coming. His principal rival in the plains - Balaram Singh, Raja of the place called Ranee, disputed his claims to part of the duars and in December 1828, confident that under the terms of the treaty which had been signed at Nongkhlaw, the British would support him, Tirot Sing went with a party of armed men to establish his claim but found himself confronted instead by a party of the Company's sepoys who blocked his passage.

It might have been at this moment that he came to think that while the Treaty he had signed conferred every benefit on the British it offered no compensatory gains for him. The deposition of Assamese official, Mahodar Barooah, before the Court of Inquiry set up in the wake of the massacre at Nongkhlaw makes pathetic reading: "Barooah," Tirot Sing is stated to have said to him, "Mr Scott formerly made friendship with me, saying, 'your enemy is the Company's enemy' and that he would relinquish the Burduar Revenue both in money and pykes. He has not done it and he has a wish to give troops to my enemy the Ranee Rajah to assist him against me".

Before the close of 1828, Bolaram clashed with Tirot and when the latter tried to subdue him, he was not only refused assistance by the Company but was demanded reparation by Scott. The situation became worse when Tirot, while leading an expedition to the Rani dwars was obstructed by a detachment of the Company troops.

Tirot felt no longer bound to the Treaty, since it had been already violated by the other contracting party. Scott had openly refused to assist Nongkhlaw in the event of the war with his foe. He knew that the other Syiems and their people would not allow this situation to continue. By the end of March 1829, the masses frustrated with the high handedness of the sepoys and loss of territory, rose unitedly and resolved to fight. This led to the outbreak of the First Anglo-Khasi war.

Innovations introduced by strangers are often distasteful, especially to a race of mountaineers, and notwithstanding all visible benefits, the spirit of hatred must have rankled in their bosoms. Shortly afterwards on 4 April 1829, these smothered passions found vent on the survey party engaged by the British in laying out the road, resulting in the atrocious massacre of two British officers, Lieutenants Bedingfield and Burlton, and between 50-60 of their servants and followers, at Nongkhlao.

The following obituary appeared in The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India:

4 April 1829, At Nongkhlao, in the Cossya Mountains (Assam), Lieutenant R. Bedingfield, Bengal Artillery, in his 27^th year. This officer was recently engaged in a survey of Lower Assam.

5 April 1829, near Nongkhlao (Assam), Lieutenant Philip Bowles Burlton, of the Bengal Artillery, fifth and youngest son of the Late William Burlton, Esq. Of Wykin Hall, Leicestershire and Donhead Lodge, Wiltshire, aged 25, was barbarously murdered by the Cassyas of Nongkhlao.

We do not know much more of Lieutenant Bedingfield, but we know that Lieutenant Burlton arrived in India toward the close of 1821, at the tender age of 17, and joined his Regiment at Dum Dum as a Subaltern of Artillery. Due to a misdemeanor, he was banished to the then comparatively little known, but generally considered most unhealthy, province of Assam. He was actively involved in the First Burmese War which soon broke out.

At the end of the war, he distinguished himself by persevering against the odds to discover the sources of the Brahmaputra river (in Assam) and the Irrawaddy river (in Burma), and added considerably to the knowledge of the geography to the north of Assam. His health however suffered as a result of his laborious journeys, the exposure and privations to which he subjected himself. He proceeded in company with his friend Lieutenant Bedingfield, to seek restoration of his health, at the then newly established Sanatarium at Nunklow, in the Cassya Hills.