Tripura History
Tripura's Manikya royal house was one of the oldest royal families in eastern India. Mizoram, formerly Lushai or Mizo Hills, was a land of small tribal chieftains and could never boast of anything like a royalty. Its polity was dominated by chiefs who practiced head-hunting up until the end of the 19th century.
Tripura is steeped in history with linkages established from the legendary Limar dynasty. Recorded history dates back to almost 3,000 years. Even Samudra Gupta's pillars mention the existence of this state. This is yet another state like Manipur where Christian influence is negligible. It is the unique continuous history that has to be absorbed here. In geographical terms, Tripura is a small state and the second smallest state of India.
Tripura finds mention in the earliest Indian epic of Mahabharata. Sahadeva, the youngest of the Pandavas, was sent to conquer the “immeasurably effulgent Tripura.” Later when the Pandavas went into exile, Duryodhana sent Karna, the Indian Achilles, to subjugate the eastern kingdoms that included Tripura. In the Mahabharata, the Kiratas are the hill men living in the eastern Himalayas. After Duryodhana ascended the throne, having sent the Pandavas into exile, he sent his generals in different directions to subjugate the kings of the outlying provinces. One of these generals was Karna, the great warrior. He is mentioned in the epic as having invaded Batsabhumi or grazing country and defeated Keroli, Mrittikavati, Mohana and Pattana, Tripura and Kosala, and made them all pay tribute.
In the epic battle of Kurukshretra, where all the kings from different parts of India fought on either side, the King of Tripura extended his loyalty to the Kauravas. In the great battle of Kurukshetra, almost all the kings were aligned either on the side of Kauravas or on the side of Pandavas. Tripura Raj thus has an ancient history
The architecture of the temple of Lord Jagannath is interesting and worth studying. It rises from an octagonal base. The Ujjayant Palace, dating back to Bir Bikram, is equally interesting with its Indo-Saracenic architecture. Old buildings and ruins worth exploring are in plenty like the lake palace called Neer Mahal on Rudrasagar Lake in Udaipur, the ancient capital. Sipahijala is an interesting area to spend the day. There is a comfortable guesthouse in the complex surrounded by forests and overlooking a large lake where one can go boating.
The historicity and chronology of the early kings of Tripura, referred to in "˜Rajmalaâ", are open to questions. Any detailed description of the role and activities of the early rulers is conspicuous by absence from the chronicle. There is a list of 179 rulers beginning with the mythological king Druhya and ending with the last coroneted king Kirit Bikram Kishore Manikya who is a non resident Tripurite. The most important point to note in judging the authenticity of the genealogy of Tripura's royalty - as referred to in "˜Rajmalaâ" - is that the very existence of the rulers from Druhya (1) to Khicangfa (136) is in question.
A major trimming of the long list, at least from 1 to 135 seems to be required to recover history from mythology, particularly in view of the absence of archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic evidences. However, it is pertinent to mention that there is indeed a reference to a state called Tripura in the Mahabharata but according to the description in the epic the place seems to point to a country near ‘Koshala’ in the vicinity of modern Jabalpur town in Madhya Pradesh. Apart from this, the famous Chinese traveller andpilgrim Yuan Chwang or Hiuen Tsang who arrived in the then Kamrup kingdom (modern Assam) in the year BC 642-43 noted the names of all the kingdoms contemporaneous with the then Assam but any reference to Tripura is conspicuous by absence from the travelogue left by him to posterity. Quite naturally, thiscasts a deep shadow over the authenticity of the early history of Tripura associated by modern scholars with mythology.
It is reasonable to believe in the light of the scanty historical document and sources that at least in the first part of seventh century Tripura or at least a part of it was under the suzerainty of Assam's truly imperial ruler Bhaskar Varman, a contemporary of Harsha Vardhana (629-642), who also defeated the powerful ruler of Gour (Bengal) Sasanka.
No contemporary evidence of the existence of a Tripuri kingdom is available though a small tribal kingdom set up by the Mogs existed at that time encompassing the present southern Tripura upto the south bank of the Gomti river, present Noakhali and Chittagong districts and southern parts of present Comilla districts of Bangladesh. The Buddhist Mogs as well as the Chakmas who set up a kingdom in the present Chittagong hill-tracts of Bangladesh had migrated from Myanmar (Burma) through the Arakan region. The archaeological remains which still survive in south Tripura provide conclusive evidences to the existence of the Mog rulers and peaceful co-existence of a composite Hindu-Buddhist culture.
The Rajas of Tripura were celebrated in the ancient Hindu traditions for their luxury. These princes seem to have been early attacked by the kings of Bengal, whose Mohammedan subjects then seized a large part of the country, leaving, however, the Tripura princes in possession of large estates as tributaries, while the more inaccessible parts of the country continued independent, and occupied by the aboriginal inhabitants, who use languages totally different from the Bengalese. The Mohammedans of Bengal were, in their turn, worsted by the kings of Arakan, (Rakhain,) who conquered the whole country near the sea, and were not driven out until after the accession of the house of Timour; nor have the Tripura Rajas recovered any part of this southern portion of their ancient dominions; although, in several parts among the hills of Chatigung there are remnants of this tribe.
The 'Rajmala', court chronicle of Tripura's Manikya dynasty rulers, chronicled events and personalitiesunder the Manikyas: Rangamati : Rangamati, later renamed as Udaipur, had been the capital of princely Tripura, at least since the commencement of the rule of the Manikyas as attested by "˜Rajmalaâ". It was during the rule of Uday Manikya (1566-71) that the capital was renamed Udaipur, headquarter of the present southTripura district Till the victory of East India Company in the battle of Plassey in June 1757 over Nawab Sirajuddaulaâ's army Tripura had been subjected to periodic attacks, plundering and extortionby successive Muslim rulers of Bengal. But it was during the ruleof Mughal emperor Jahangir that the state suffered most. In the year 1618 when Yashodhar Manikya was the king, Tripura was subjugated by Mughals after a brief siege of the capital Udaipur. The capital was sacked and the state remained under Mughal rule during 1618- 20 when people in general were looted. Prohibition was imposed on traditional worship of deities in religious places including ˜Tripureswari temple. King Yasodhar Manikya was captured and taken as prisoner to Mughal court in Delhi never to return to his kingdom and people. Unable to bear the humiliation he breathed his last as an ascetic in Brindaban in 1623 after being released from the Mughal court.
The disintegration of the Tripura kingdom started in the early 17th century. During the time of Mughal Emperor Jahangir, King Yasodhar Manikya was taken prisoner for failing to present elephants, for which Tripura was famous, to the Emperor. However, as recorded by the British, Tripura was never subjugated by the Mughals.
In 1798 Radun Manik, the Rajah of Tripura, resided at Agatola, near Komila, his whole estates on the plains having been long tributary and subject to the government of Bengal ; but the Tripura nation, or tribe, maintained, under his authority, a kind of independence among the hills for about thirty miles in width, along the banks of the Monu river, which falls into the Surma, and along both banks of the Gomuti and Phani (Fenny R.) rivers, a length of about 120 miles.
The British relations with Tripura were somewhat anomalous in the sense that the British did not annex the hill territory, although they interfered in its affairs now and then. No treaty existed between the British Government and the Raja of Tripura, the tradition and usage that continued until the last ruler, Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya (1923–47).
Tripura held a position quite unique, as the Ruler holds Zamindaries under the British Government side by side with a sovereign state of comparatively large area with full powers of legislation... There is no written treaty with the paramount power, the relations being governed by recognized usages and customs... The State is now in direct political relation with the Government of India, and His Excellency the Governor of Bengal is in position of agent to the Governor General.
On the eve of independence, Maharaja Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya contemplated joining the Indian Union in 1947, but he died and was succeeded by a minor. A Council of Regency was formed with Queen Kanchan Prava Devi as the regent ruler of the state. The Maharani signed the Instrument of Accession on 13 August 1947 with the Indian Union. Subsequently, on the advice of the Government of India, the Regency Council was dissolved and a Dewan was appointed on 21 March 1948 to carry on the day-to-day administration. On 9 September 1949, the Maharani signed the Agreement for the Merger of Tripura with the Indian Union. A chief commissioner was appointed to run the administration of the State. In 1950, Tripura was classified as a Part C State of the Indian Union. Eventually Tripura became a Union Territory and on 21 January 1972 was given the status of a full fledged state.
The partition of India in 1947 had an enormous effect on the process of social and economic development of the State. The Partition deprived the state of its chief railheads in the west, southand north which fell in East Pakistan so that the state was effectively cut off from the rest of the country but for a tenuous road link. This resulted in a huge infrastructural and economic setback for Tripura. The state’s resources came under severe strain due to a heavy influx of refugees into the state from East Pakistan right from the early fifties. This created tremendous pressure on an already over-burdened land with little infrastructural facilities and insignificant supporting industries. Even after the upheaval of Partition, migration from East Pakistan tended to swell the population of Tripura, especially during and immediately after the Bangladesh War. This tended to add to the population pressure on the State.
The initial decades after Independence in Tripura were, therefore, typified by an economically poor populace within which the disadvantaged sections of ST and SC were even poorer and poor physical infrastructure which again was largely Agartala centric. There was practically no inter- State communication, in the absence of rail or road network, and even within the State the road communication infrastructure was highly inadequate. Many of the Sub-Divisional and Block Headquarters did not have roads and to reach some of these places required travel on foot for several days. A large proportion of the population did not have access to health and education and were dependent on the forests for their livelihood. The financial condition of the Government was also quite unsatisfactory and it was hardly able to meet the requirements of a developing State. Agriculture was largely jhum based and, therefore on subsistence levels. The economy was primarily agriculture and forest based and with no manufacturing activity.
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