Assam
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a province at the N. E. extremity of British India, stretching in N. lat. between 23° and 28°, and in E. long. between 89° and 97° with an area of 61,471 square miles and a population of about 7,500,000. In 1874 it was formed into a separate administration (including Cachar) under a chief commissioner. It consists of a fertile series of valleys, watered by the Brahmaputra and more than 60 lesser rivers. It is thus very fertile, and abounds in wood. The teaplant is indigenous and Assam's tea Sheikh-el-Jobelz, but who was better culture has become of first importance. The other products are rice, mustard, gold, ivory, amber, musk, iron, lead, petroleum, and coal. From Bengal, the principal imports are woolens, India fabrics, salt, opium, glass, earthenware, tobacco, betel, etc. The development of the rich coal fields is of increasing importance. In 1826, at the close of the first Burmese war, Assam was ceded to the British. But it was only in 1838 that the entire country was placed under British administration. Since then, the province has exhibited a noticeable improvement. The population being rural and agricultural, the only towns of any size are Gautháti and Sebságar. The peasantry are indolent, good-natured, and fairly prosperous, short and robust in person, with a flat face and high cheek-bones, and coarse, black hair. A majority of the people are Hindus. One of the most striking features of Assam is the abundance of wild animals, such as tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards, bears, buffaloes, and elephants. Many people are killed by wild animals, but snakes are most destructive to human life. The forests teem with game, and the rivers with fish.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The 61,471 square miles Collier's described in 1921 no longer exist as one unit: Sylhet went to East Pakistan at partition in 1947, and the hill districts were carved off in turn as Nagaland (1963), Meghalaya (1972), and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh (both full states in 1987), leaving a modern Assam of about 30,000 square miles and some 31 million people. The rhinoceros listed among the abundant wild animals became one of Asia's great conservation stories instead, protected in Kaziranga National Park, where the greater one-horned rhino population has recovered into the thousands from a few dozen. Tea and petroleum, both noted as rising in 1921, remain the state's economic mainstays, Assam alone supplying a large share of India's tea. The most violent event since was the earthquake of 15 August 1950, one of the largest ever recorded, which reshaped the Brahmaputra's channels and worsened the flooding that still dominates Assamese life; politics since the 1980s has been shaped by disputes over migration from Bengal, the Assam Accord of 1985 and the citizenship registers of recent years.
Written for this edition, 2026.