Medieval History Since Silchar was only founded after the introduction of the British in 1832, the pre-colonial history of Silchar can be approximated through the history of the region and nearby areas.
Tippera, Koch, and Dimasa rule Cachar district, whose headquarters is in Silchar, was ruled by the
Manikya dynasty in the 13th century. The initial capital of the kingdom was in Khalangsha in Cachar, which has been identified as Rajghat village in
Sonai, 18 km from Silchar. The Tippera eventually moved eastwards to present day Tripura. By the 16th century, Cachar was a part of the Tripura kingdom. The Tippera kings continued their rule in Barak Valley till mid-16th century, when commander
Chilarai of the
Koch dynasty defeated the king of Tripura in 1562 in Longai. Gosai Kamal, also known as Kamal Narayan, was another brother of Naranarayan. He was made the governor of Barak Valley and ruled the area from Khaspur, 20 km away from Silchar. The area was ruled by seven more Koch kings after Gosai Kamal: Udita Singha, Dhir Singha, Mehendra Singha, Ranjit Singha, Nara Singha and Bhim Singha. Bhim Singha, the last Koch Raja of Khaspur, only had a daughter called Kanchani who was married off to Prince Laksmichandra of the
Kachari Dimasa kingdom of
Maibang in 1745.
Bengali presence in the Kachari Kingdom While the hill areas of the Kachari kingdom i.e. Dima Hasao, had a
Dimasa stronghold, the plain areas i.e. present day Cachar had
Bengalis constituting the majority. The kings in turn were great patrons of
Bengali literature; Bengali was the court language of the Kachari kings, translation of Sanskrit texts into Bengali was carried out, and the kings themselves composed prose and poetry in Bengali. In fact some of the only surviving written examples of the Bengali tradition in later 18th and early 19th century Cachar are the 27 letters written by Raja Krishna Chandra and Raja Gobinda Chandra to the
East India Company. The then Governor General of India,
Lord William Amherst, saw the British occupation of Cachar as essential towards guarding the nearby British held district of
Sylhet from the Burmese. On 6 March 1824, Gobinda Chandra signed the Treaty of Badarpur with the British, who declared Cachar as a
British protectorate and recognised Raja Gobinda Chandra as the ruler of Cachar. Captain Thomas Fisher, an army officer took charge of Cachar on 30 June 1830 with the headquarters in
Cherrapunji. On 14 August 1832 Cachar came under formal British occupation and in 1833 Silchar was made the headquarters. Cachar was part of the
Bengal province from 1832 to 1874, when the district was transferred to the new Assam province. Its constituent areas such as Tarapur, Ambikapur, Kanakpur, and Rangpur have been mentioned as villages under Gobinda Chandra, but not 'Silchar'. The earliest mention of Silchar was in 1835 in a report by R.B. Pamberton, and since then it was mentioned in British official documents. After shifting the district headquarters to Silchar in 1832, Captain Fisher started building Sadar Station in Janiganj. Janiganj existed prior to the British as part of a taluk under the Mirasdars of Ambikapur before being taken over by Gobinda Chandra. In this respect, Captain Thomas Fisher was the founder of Silchar. Silchar got its very first body for self governance In 1882, when a Town Committee was established under the Bengal Municipal Act, 1876. The earliest newspaper in Cachar, called 'Silchar', appeared in 1883. In 1891, the town became a municipality and in 1899 the Assam-Bengal railways reached Silchar, providing easier access to the
Port of Chittagong. N. G. A. Edgley, District and Sessions Judge of Sylhet and Cachar, was present in Silchar during the floods and supervised the relief activities till 19 June when the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner returned from
Shillong and
Haflong, where they were stranded. Buildings in the town sustained major damages and the supply of filtered water was absent from 12 June to 5 July. The population in the town had grown by 60% since 1901 and had access to water supply. The town now had increased amenities, including 'presses, motor works, druggist shop, oil mills, ice factory'. In 1937, the Cachar Branch of the
Kishan Sabha was established with Dwijen Sen as first General Secretary. In 1859, Stewart, now the deputy commissioner, and Major General Joseph Sherer, assistant deputy commissioner, established the world's first polo club in Silchar, called the Silchar Kangjei Club. It was later renamed to Silchar Polo Club and survives today as the
Cachar Club, though no polo is played any more.
Post independence history After the
1947 Sylhet referendum and Independence of India, the town of Silchar saw a large increase of 10.5% in its population in the decade of 1941–51. This was largely because of the in migration of Hindu refugees from the adjacent district of
Sylhet went to
East Pakistan. After that, Silchar and the rest of Cachar came under the District & Sessions Judge, Jorhat till 1955 when the District & Sessions Judge of Cachar District took over in Silchar. S. K. Dutta became the first District & Sessions Judge of Cachar District Judiciary. Apart from the refugees from East Pakistan, Silchar also saw a lot of migration from neighbouring states in the Northeast due to political disturbances which added to the population growth. Section 5 of Assam Act XVIII, 1961, safeguards the use of Bengali in the Cachar district. It says, “Without prejudice to the provisions contained in Section 3, the Bengali language shall be used for administrative and other official purposes up to and including district level.” ==Geography==