Burmese invasions of Assam

Chandrakanta Singha made his camp at Guwahati and lead his campaign against the Burmese with Maharaja Ranjit Singh's help. Maharaja of Punjab sent a force of more than 10,000 ferocious Sikh soldiers[11] in support of Ahom King against Burma. Purandar, who was unable to raise an army in the British territory, raised one in Bhutan under Robert Bruce, but this force was dispersed by Chandrakanta's Sikh forces in May 1821.[12] A large force, deputed by Tilwa, advanced against Chandrakanta (September 1821), who retreated to Assam Chokey and then to the British territories. Unlike Purandar, Chandrakanta was able to raise a force mainly of Sikhs soldiers, and he retook Assam Chokey (October 1821) and Guwahati (December 1821) and pitched his camp at Mahgarh, near Jorhat, on March 15, 1822.[13] The commander of the Sikh soldiers, Chataniya Singh of Lahore was killed although the Sikhs routed the Burmese hordes.

Bagyidaw, on hearing of the Assam situation, sent in a 20,000 strong contingent under Mingi Maha Bandula who attacked and defeated the forces of Chandrakanta in April 1822. Chandrakanta fell back to Guwahati, and finally to Assam chaki, where he encountered Mingimaha Tilwa in June 1822. He was defeated and had to further retreat into the British territory. After this victory, the Burmese declared Mingimaha Tilwa the Raja of Assam and brought an end to the sovereign Ahom rule in Assam.[14]

The defeat of Chandrakanta at Assam Chokey brought the Burmese face-to-face with the British in the Brahmaputra valley. Tilwa demanded the British hand over the fugitive king, and threatened to enter British territory to seize him, with about 7,000 troops at Assam Chokey and 1,000 more at Guwahati under Bandula. Nevertheless, the Burmese troops faced logistics issues, and as a result Bandula left Guwahati, leaving Tilwa at Guwahati with only 1,000 troops.[15] At this juncture, the Chandrakanta Singha was invited by the Burmese to come back and rule. Chandrakanta abandoned his Baruas and Phukan's and surrendered to Tilwa at Assam Chokey. When he reached Jorhat, he was seized and imprisoned instead.[16]

This account differs a little from the Burmese account in which the expedition that started in February 1821 with the 20,000 (including 10,000 kamti Shan and Kachin levies) Burmese Army is said to have taken one and a half years to reach Assam when it defeated Chandrakanta Singha in July 1822 and made Assam a Burmese province under a military governor-general, extinguishing the 600-year-old Ahom court once and for all.[17][18] Chandrakanta Singha fled to British territory of Bengal. The British ignored Bandula's demands to surrender the fugitive king, and instead sent reinforcement units to frontier forts.[19] Maha Bandula left a military garrison of 2000 men commanded by Maha Thilawa, and returned to Ava.[20]

This period is remembered in Assam as very difficult, with the garrison soldiers and native marauders committing atrocities on the common people leading to thousands leaving Assam for Bengal. Much of the neighboring State of Manipur was also laid waste by the marauding armies.

By 1825, the Meiteis under the leadership of Meitei king Gambhir Singh had repulsed the Burmese and drove them past the Chindwin river.[21] The occupation led to frequent contacts between the Burmese and the British and finally to the First Burmese war and the Treaty of Yandaboo in 1826. This treaty marked the end of Burmese rule and the beginning of British rule in Assam.

In Buranji-vivek-ratna, Maniram Dewan, an eyewitness writes:[22]

...in attacking the house of a rich man, would tie him with ropes and then set fire to his body. Some they flayed alive, others they burnt in oil and others again they drove in crowds to village Naamghars or prayer-houses, which they then set on fire... It was dangerous for a beautiful woman to meet a Burmese even on the public road. Brahmans were made to carry loads of beef, pork and wine. The Gosains were robbed of all their possessions. Fathers of damsels whom the Burmese took as wives rose speedily to affluence and power.[23]

The atrocities committed by the Burmese in Assam have passed into the common traditions of the people, and have been confirmed by the recorded versions of sufferers and eye witnesses, and of those who had come in contact with them. Gangs of local marauders and some of the neighboring hill tribes like the Jingpo/Singphos and Khamtis, having identified their interests with the invaders, committed the same atrocities on the people and carried off numerous inhabitants into slavery. Those who afford fled to the neighboring countries like Bengal, Bhutan and Cachar. It is impossible to estimate the number of person who fled, were killed or deported to Burma. The wholesale depopulation and widespread misery and agony. Consequently, this excellent valley, in the words of M'Cosh, who surveyed it a few years after the Burmese invasion Though some centuries ago richly cultivated...is now throughout six-eight or seven-eight of its extent covered with jungle and gigantic reeds, traversed only by the wild elephant or the buffalo, where human step in unknown and the atmosphere even to the natives themselves is pregnant with febrile miasmata and death.[24] The sort of fighting and bloody killings that took place between 1812 and 1819 when the Burmese kings of Mandalay tried to conquer and subdue the Shan Ahom kingdom in Assam, where the Burmese garrison commander Maha Thilawa's troops committed atrocities. However, the native marauders and hilly tribes, taking advantage of the unstable situation, disguised themselves as Burmese, looted the cities and probably killed more people than the invaders did.[25] The population of Assam was greatly reduced by 2/3 and 1/3 of the men and boys were killed during this period.[26]

Major John Butler who came to Assam in 1837 and met many survivors of the Burmese rule recorded the story of a massacre committed in 1819-20 on the bank of the Kalang river.

"After having decapitated 50 persons in one day, the Burmese placed a large number of men, women, and children on a, bamboo platform inside a house erected of bamboo and thatch. They then set fire to the fuel placed round the building. In a few minutes 200 persons were consumed in the flames. “ All who were suspected of being inimical to the reign of terror, were seized and bound by Burmese executioners, who cut off the lobes of the poor victims’ ears and choice portions of the body, such as the points of the shoulders, and actually ate the raw flesh before the living sufferers. They then inhumanly inflicted, with a sword, deep but not mortal gashes on the body, that the mutilated might die slowly, and finally closed the tragedy by disembowelling the wretched victims."

The Burmese incursions in Manipur are said to have depopulated the country and removed all traces of Manipuri civilization. The period of seven year devastation in Manipur from 1819 to 1826 is known as 'Chahi Taret Khuntakpa.'[27]The ravages of Bodawpaya and his predecessors had reduced parts of Siam into a desert, for years the fields round Tavoy were white with human bones. To escape from Burmese oppressions the greater part of the population of Arakan had deserted their country and taken shelter in British territory “ where taxation was reasonable, and a man could go to bed at night without wondering whether his throat would be cut in the morning by order of some official“[28] The Muslim Pangal of Manipur too were devastated and taken as slaves by the invading Burmese armies.[29]