A section of Gohain Kamal Ali today

Gohain Kamal Ali was an embanked road that connected the capital of the Koch dynasty, Cooch Behar in North Bengal to heart of Agomani in Dhubri and Narayanpur in Lakhimpur district in Assam, and ran along the foot of the Bhutan hills and the Dafla (Nishi) hills.[1] This was constructed under the supervision of Gohain Kamal Ali, the step-brother of the king, Nara Narayan and was completed in 1547.[2] This was the road that the Koch general Chilarai used soon after for his invasion of the Ahom kingdom, and attacked the Ahom fort at Pichala, which was not a success,[3] but a later movement in 1562 was greatly successful.

In 1562 Naranarayan encamped at Chandikabehar, Mangaldai, he demarcated the region north of the road as where the Koch and the Mech people were to follow their tribal customs, and region south where Brahminic rites were to be followed.[4]

From the early 17th-century, the Kingdom of Bhutan pushed south and took control of the fertile plains down to Gohain Kamal Ali road.[5][6] Ahom King Gaurinath Singha (1780–1795) had fixed this road as the northern boundary of Darrang.[7] The Kingdom of Bhutan controlled the Duars of Koch Hajo and Koch Behar north of Gohain Kamal Ali under the jurisdiction of Trongsa Penlop and Paro Penlop, till the Duar Wars in 1865 when the British removed the Bhutanese influence from the Duars under the Treaty of Sinchula and the Eastern Duars, Kamrup Duars, Darrang Duars were merged with Goalpara, Kamrup, Darrang district of Assam and the Western Dooars to Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal and later to the Indian Union in 1949.

Notes

  1. ↑ (Nath 1989:54)
  2. ↑ (Baruah 1986:208)
  3. ↑ (Baruah 1986:208)
  4. ↑ (Nath 1989:55)
  5. ↑ "Taking advantage of [the collapse of Koch Hajo], the Bhutias pushed their southern boundary towards the plains and occupied the land upto the Gohain Kamal Ali." (Das 1998:13)
  6. ↑ "During the period of political uncertainty caused by the Ahom-Mughal conflict in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Bhutias had taken possession of the whole of the fertile plain south of their hills as far as the Gohain Kamal Ali." (Das 1998:59)
  7. ↑ (Gogoi 1994:579)

References

  • Baruah, S L (1986), A Comprehensive History of Assam, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
  • Nath, D (1989), History of the Koch Kingdom: 1515-1615, Delhi: Mittal Publications
  • Das, Smriti (1998). Assam Bhutan relations with special reference to duars from 1681 to 1949 (PhD). Guwahati University. hdl:10603/67909.
  • Gogoi, Nityananda (1994). Historical Geography of Medieval Assam. EBH Publishers (India). ISBN 9789383252701.
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