History of Sylhet
Historically known as Srihatta and Shilhatta, it was ruled by the Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms of Harikela and Kamarupa before passing to the control of the Chandra, Sena and Deva dynasties in the early medieval period.
[1][2] After the fall of these Buddhist and Hindu principalities, the region became home to many more independent petty kingdoms such as Jaintia, Gour, Laur, and later Taraf, Pratapgarh, Jagannathpur, Chandrapur and Ita.
After the Conquest of Sylhet in the 14th century, the region was absorbed into Shamsuddin Firoz Shah's independent principality based in Lakhnauti, Western Bengal.
However, when the Radcliffe Line was drawn up, Karimganj district of Barak Valley was given to India by the commission after being pleaded by Abdul Matlib Mazumdar's delegation.
According to historians, Sylhet was an expanded commercial centre inhabited by Brahmans under the realm of the Harikela and Kamarupa kingdoms of ancient Bengal and Assam.
A 930 AD copper-plate of Srichandra, of the Chandra dynasty of East Bengal, was found in Tengubazar Mandir, Paschimbhag, Rajnagar detailing his successful campaign against the Kingdom of Kamarupa.
[12] After the death of Raja Upananda of Brahmachal (modern-day Baramchal, Kulaura), Govardhan of Gour allowed Amar Singh to rule over southern Sylhet.
Ghiyasuddin Iwaz Shah, the governor of Bengal who later claimed independence from Delhi, carried out invasions into neighbouring regions such as Assam, Tripura, Bihar and Sylhet and making them his tributary states.
This war began when Ghazi Burhanuddin, a Muslim living in Tultikar sacrificed a cow for his newborn son's aqiqah or celebration of birth.
Bengali Muslims were exploiting the fertile land of Sylhet for agricultural production and enjoyed relative prosperity innovating a contemporary agrarian society.
In 1384, a young Persian man by the name of Mirza Malik Muhammad Turani migrated to Sylhet with a large force and established the Pratapgarh Kingdom (also including Deorali and Bhanugach) after marrying the daughter of the local ruler who had no children to take the throne.
In 1499, a Persian nobleman from Isfahan known as Prince Sakhi Salamat settled in a rural village in South Sylhet known as Prithimpassa (now located in Kulaura).
Being a wealthy nobleman; his son, Ismail Khan Lodhi, was granted a jagir by the Mughals and given the status of Nawab in addition to other prestigious titles.
[28] When the governor of Sylhet under the Bengal Sultanate, Gawhar Khan Aswari passed away, his deputies, Subid Ram and Ramdas, took advantage of his death and embezzled a large amount of money from the state government before fleeing to Pratapgarh.
[31] Bazid was allowed to continue as ruler of Pratapgarh with relative independence, but he was required to surrender his control of Sylhet and give up the title of Sultan.
A tribute of money and elephants were given to show Bazid's loyalty, while Subid Ram and Ramdas, were sent to Alauddin Hussain Shah to face punishment.
The Assamese claim that Chilarai of Kamata, the brother of King Nara Narayan, took over parts of the Sylhet region, including Jaintia Kingdom, in 1553.
However, the Pashtuns and the local zamindars known as Baro Bhuyans led by Isa Khan, the ruler of Bhati, continued to resist the Mughal invasion.
However, even during the reigns of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, Mughal authority in Sylhet was still referred to as Bengal's Wild East due to the region becoming a refuge for the Afghan chieftains and other Baro-Bhuiyan insurgents.
Isfandiyar Khan Beg succeeded Shirazi in 1663 and was known to have destroyed Majlis Alam's Adina Mosque replica in Dargah Mahalla because the imam started Eid prayers without waiting for him.
An envoy of Jaintias assembled at Hajo where they informed the incident to Ahom Raja Suremphaa Swargadeo Rajeswar Singh who re-opened it for them.
[12] In 1782, the first ever uprising in the Indian subcontinent which was against the British rule, the Muharram Rebellion, took place in Sylhet Shahi Eidgah in which Lindsay killed two of the leaders of the rally, the Pirzada and Syed Muhammad Hadi, with his own pistol.
Willes also told the government that he really had little control over northern Sylhet as the Khasi chiefs refused every order, would behead the messenger and then continue raiding Sylheti villages as they had done even during the Mughal period.
With the last Khasi raid taking place in 1795, the British experienced another attack in 1827 in Panduah leading to the death of a sepoy, postman and dhobi.
Opposition to partition was co-ordinated by Indian National Congress, whose President was then Sir Henry John Stedman Cotton who had been Chief Commissioner of Assam until he retired in 1902.
[61] By the 1920s, organizations such as the Sylhet Peoples' Association and Sylhet-Bengal Reunion League (1920) mobilized public opinion demanding the division's incorporation into Bengal.
[62] However, the leaders of the Reunion League, including Muhammad Bakht Mauzumdar and Syed Abdul Majid, later opposed the transfer of Sylhet and Cachar to Bengal during the Surma Valley Muslim Conference of September 1928.
During World War II, many fought on the Allied front before settling down in the United Kingdom, where they opened cafes and restaurants which became important hubs for the British Asian community.
After being pleaded by a delegation led by Abdul Matlib Mazumdar, a large part of Karimganj subdivision was barred and incorporated into the Dominion of India.
In Beanibazar, the rebellion was born and spread across East Pakistan leading the Pakistani government to abolish the zamindari system and repeal the non-governmental rule to recognize the ownership of the land of peasants.
