Garo Hills · Northeast Hill Massif
Garo resistance has two phases that look nothing alike and are about exactly the same thing. The first is military and short — three and a half decades of expeditions and one remembered engagement, ending in 1873. The second is legal and long — Sonaram R. Sangma's sixteen years of petitions, memorials and prosecutions against the Bijni estate's claim on Habraghat and against the forest reserves. Both were fought over a·king: land held by clan in the female line, against a claim written on paper by somebody on the plain. Named individuals are few because the record is thin, not because participation was — colonial files routinely register Garo action collectively, as nokmas and villages rather than as persons.
Risings and revolts
Three and a half decades of intermittent fighting as the administration pushed inward from the foothills, village by village, taking engagements from individual nokmas and burning those that refused. There was no combined Garo command, because A·chik polity had no office that could have provided one.
Outcome: The hills were constituted a district and brought fully under administration between 1869 and 1873.
A Garo force under Pa Togan Nengminza Sangma attacked a British camp near Rongrenggre. The Garo side was armed with spears, shields and daos against firearms, and the action was over quickly.
Outcome: Pa Togan was killed at Chisobibra, where a memorial now stands, and organised resistance in the eastern hills ended. The date is observed annually in Meghalaya.
A campaign against the Bijni estate's claim on the Habraghat tract, the reservation of roughly 139 square miles of forest between 1883 and 1895, the nazarana payments and unpaid labour. It ran through petitions from April 1900, a memorial to the Viceroy in 1902, a march of several hundred Garos to the Dolgoma ghat in December 1902 at which a Garo Raj was proclaimed, and a memorial in 1906 said to have carried a lakh of signatures.
Outcome: Sonaram and others were imprisoned in 1903 and again in 1905. The inquiry under J. C. Arbuthnott reported in 1908 in favour of the Bijni claim and retained the Beckett line. Further conversion of forest to reserve was checked and payment for government labour secured; the Habraghat claim was not.
People
| Name | Years | Movement | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pa Togan Nengminza SangmaRongrenggre, Garo Hills | died 12 December 1872 | Resistance to the annexation of the Garo Hills | Led the Garo force that attacked the British camp near Rongrenggre in December 1872.Killed at Chisobibra, where a memorial stands. |
| Sonaram R. SangmaBorn at Na·chirongdik; active across the Garo Hills and Goalpara | c. 1867 – 27 August 1916 | The Garo land movement, 1899–1908 | Left government employment in 1899 to carry the Garo land case, taking counsel in Calcutta, organising petitions and memorials, and leading the march to the Dolgoma ghat in December 1902.Convicted of unlawful assembly in April 1903 and imprisoned; arrested again in February 1905 and held six months, then barred from the Garo Hills district. Died at Goalpara on 27 August 1916. |
| Phongpong LaskarGaro Hills foothills | active 1900–1901 | The Garo land movement | Submitted, with six others, the petition of 11 April 1900 to the Chief Commissioner of Assam — the first united action of the land campaign — and removed survey demarcation marks on the disputed line.Imprisoned. |
| Jontha LaskarGaro Hills foothills | active 1902 | The Garo land movement | Submitted, with fourteen others, the 1902 memorandum to the Viceroy on the Garo land and forest question. |
People from Garo Hills who resisted colonial rule, and the regional risings and revolts that shaped that resistance. (7)