The East India Company Period
Three years after the Battle of Plassey, Mir Qasim the new Nawab of Murshidabad rewarded the British East India Company with Chittagong, Burdwan and Midnapur. On 5 January 1761 the company representative Harry Verlest took over charges of Chittagong from Subedar Mohammad Reza Khan. But the Chakma king Sher Doulat Khan who was practically independent through nominally paid tribute to the Mughals, didn't accept the hegemony of the Company and their demand of taxes at enhanced rate. A protracted war started and it continued up hi to 1787. The East India Company launched four offensives against the Chakmas in 1770, 1780, 1782 and 1785. In 1785 the Company started peace negotiations with the then Chakma king Jan Baksh Khan, son of Sher Doulat Khan. Later in 1787 the king accepted the sovereignty of the Company and agreed to pay 500 maunds of cotton annually. The peace agreement or treaty was signed at Kolkata.
The main provisions of the treaty between the Governor General Lord Cornwallis and the Chakma king were as following
- The East India Company recognised Jan Baksh Khan as the Raja of the Chakmas.
- It was agreed that the collection of revenue was the responsibility of the Raja.
- The British Government would preserve the tribal autonomy and migration from the plains would be restricted.
- Jan Baksh Khan was bound by the treaty to maintain peace in his territory.
- British troops would remain in the Chakma territory not to terrify the Chakmas but to protect the land from the inroads of the fierce tribes.
In 1829, Halhed then Commissioner of Chittagong reaffirmed that
| “ | The hill tribes were not British subjects but merely tributaries and we recognized no right on our part to interfere with their internal arrangements. The near neighbourhood of a powerful & stable government naturally brought the Chief by degree under control and every leading chief paid to the Chittagong collector a certain tribute or yearly gifts. These sums were at first fluctuating in amount but gradually were brought to specific and fixed limit, eventually taking the shape not as tribute but as revenue to the state | ” |
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Jan Baksh Khan shifted his Capital to a new place naming it Rajanagar, near present day Rangunia. After Jan Baksh's death in 1800,his son Tabbar Khan became king;but he died shortly. In 1802 Tabbar Khan's younger brother Jabbar Khan became King & ruled for ten years. After his death,his son Dharam Baksh Khan became king in 1812. He ruled up to 1832. After his death in 1832 without any male issue, there was chaos and the government appointed Suklal Dewan as the Manager. In the meantime Rani Kalindi,widow of Dharam Baksh Khan applied to the government to allow her to run the state affairs. The government accepted her application & in 1844 issued an order to that effect. In 1846 the annual revenue payable to the Company was refixed at 11,803.00Rs.
After the great Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British Government assumed direct control of the administration of India from the East India Company along with Chittagong Hill Tracts, which was not yet formally separated from Chittagong. But the territorial jurisdiction of the Chakma Raja was fixed by a proclamation dated 6th Shraavana 1170M.S(1763 AD) by the Company as All the hills from the Feni river to the Sangoo and from Nizampur Road in Chittagong to the hills of Kooki Raja.
After Rani Kalindi's death in 1873, her grandson Harish Chandra became the Chakma Raja and was vested with the title Roy Bahadur.
Read more about this topic: Chakma People
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