Thread by @Tea_preneur

We all believed that it was the BRITISHERS who discovered TEA in India!

But NOTHING could be further from the TRUTH.

Find the extraordinary story of grit/rebellion & how history has been ignored/sidelined in this case.

This is the story of a legend - Maniram Dewan 🧵

1/ In 1839, for the 1st time in history Indian tea went on sale in Britain.

Up till then, only Chinese teas had been auctioned.

The turn of events was a result of a trip in 1823 when Scottish trader & explorer Robert Bruce visited Rangpur, capital of the Ahom Kingdom in Assam

2/ The trip had a specific purpose. Robert intended to meet Bessa Gaum, the chief of the Singhpo, an indigenous tribe of the Indian North-East.

Robert had learned the Singhpo grew a variety of tea where they ate the leaf as vegetable and drank a brew out of the boiled leaves.

3/ Due to conflict of interests between the Britishers and Chinese, the British merchants were on the lookout for a new tea source.

The historical meeting between the tribal chief and R. Bruce would alter the course of global tea history.

A meeting initated by Maniram Dewan.

4/ Born in 1806, Maniram Dutta Baruah belonged to an influential family with close ties to the Ahom Court.

The family also enjoyed close ties with the British East India Company especially during the First Anglo-Burmese War, when they were guaranteed asylum and safety.

5/ Growing up, in his early years Maniram was a loyal ally to the Britishers.

Through the influence of his father & his sound knowledge of geography, he was popular amongst the British officers.

It was Maniram who informed R. Bruce of the Singpho tribe and their tea plants.

6/ Singphos are of Mongolian origin and are called the Kachin in Burma and the Jingpo in China.

Around B.C.300– A.D.100 the Singpho entered Brahmaputra valley and brought with them their traditions, culture, and most importantly their affinity to tea.

7/ The meeting engineered by Maniram was a success.

Robert was permitted by the Chief to carry samples when he discovered the brew produced by the plant closely resembled tea.

This decision would credit R. Bruce with the discovery of tea in India & open Assam's door to tea.

8/ Though Robert would pass away the following year, the work of the plantations would be carried out by his younger brother Charles Alexander Bruce.

A soldier who fought in the First Anglo-Burmese War, C.A. Bruce would continue the establishment of the tea industry in Assam.

9/ Opening the door to Assam’s tea industry translated to great rewards from the British for Maniram.

In 1828, 22-year-old Maniram was appointed as a tehsildar and a sheristadar of Rangpur under Captain John Bryan Neufville.

10/ By 1839 he was appointed Dewan of Assam Tea Company, drawing a salary of Rs.200.

In the beginning, he extended his full support to the company even conniving the demolition of the old  Ahom metropolis at Garhgaon for building the Nazira tea factory.

11/ Apart from opening several new plantations and increasing the profits of the company he also helped to supply coal to the steamers in Gauhati.  

However,  Dewan was infuriated by the overbearing attitude of the company officers subordinate to him and quit his post in 1845.

12/ By this time, Maniram had acquired tea cultivation expertise. He established his own tea garden at Chenimora in Jorhat, thus becoming the first Indian to grow tea commercially in Assam.

Jorhat later became home to the tea research laboratory Tocklai Experimental Station.

13/ He established another plantation at Selung (or Singlo) in Sibsagar.

Apart from the tea industry, Maniram ventured into iron smelting, gold procuring, and salt production.

He was also involved in the manufacturing of goods like matchlocks, hoes, and cutlery.

14/ His other business included boat making, coal supply, elephant trade, construction of buildings for military headquarters, etc.  

He established markets in Garohat in Kamrup, Nagahat near Sivasagar, Borhat in Dibrugarh, Sissihat in Dhemaji, and Darangia Haat in Darrang.

15/ But his success soon earned the ire of the Britishers.

Fearing his influence on the locals and to halt his growth he was deprived of the benefit of getting waste-land at concessional rates like the European planters.

16/ To further deprive him, the Principal Assistant, Major Charles Holroyd took away from him the Mouzas(administrative district),  which had belonged to his family for generations.

To humiliate him further, the Major gave the Mouzas to Dewan's subordinate.

17/ Maniram who was the borbhandar(Prime Minister) of the titular ruler of Assam, Purandar Singha, protested when the king was deposed by the Britishers.

He resigned from his previously awarded posts of sheristadar and tehsildar.

18/ Within a few years he lost his administrative positions under the  British  Government,  his  Dewanship under the Assam  Company,  his business in coal, and finally even the Mouzas which were held by him as a private possession.

19/ By the 1850s Maniram had become hostile to the Britishers for the hardships that followed him and his family of 185 members.

The Company's actions against Maniram were motivated simply to protect their monopoly in the tea industry in  Assam, disabling any competition.

20/ In 1852, he presented a petition to A.G. Moffat Mills, the judge of Sadar Court, Calcutta.

In his petition, he stated that the people of Assam had been "reduced to the most abject and hopeless state of misery from the loss of their fame, honor, rank, caste, employment, etc."

21/ His petition also was against the unjust taxation system, pension system, and the introduction of opium cultivation.

He criticized the discontinuation of puja at Kamakhya Temple and the "objectionable treatment" of the Hill Tribes resulting in loss of life and livelihood.

22/ Maniram proposed that the former native administration of the Ahom kings be reintroduced.

Judge Mills dismissed the petition as a "curious document" from "a discontented subject" & remarked that Maniram was "a clever but an untrustworthy and intriguing person".

23/ Maniram now realized that there would be no future for Assam under colonial rule.

He threw his lot with Kandarpeswar Singha, the Charing Raja, who also, had been facing utmost difficulties in maintaining the royal family that was on the verge of penury.

24/ To gather support for the reintroduction of the Ahom rule, Maniram arrived in Calcutta, in April 1857, and networked with several influential people.

On behalf of Kandarpeswar Singha, he petitioned the British administrators for restoration of the Ahom rule on 6 May 1857.

25/ When the Indian sepoys started an uprising against the British on 10 May, Maniram saw it as an opportunity to restore Ahom rule.

With help from messengers disguised as fakirs, he sent coded letters to Piyoli Baruah, who was the chief advisor of Kandarpeswar in his absence.

26/ In these letters, he urged Kandarpeswar Singha to launch a rebellion against the British, with help from the sepoys at Dibrugarh and Golaghat.

Kandarpeswar and his loyal men hatched an anti-British plot and gathered arms.

27/ Maniram also wrote letters to Madhuram Koch a contractor of the Assam Company at Nazira.

In response, he organized the laborers to serve a notice of strike.

Their counterparts in other gardens followed suit and started non-co-operation against the Europeans.

28/ The extremely volatile & uncertain state of Assam in 1857 instilled fear in the minds of European planters, missionaries & officials.

The planters of Sibsagar left their factories for Gauhati thinking that the outbreak of the sepoys was likely to occur within no time.

29/ In fact, most of the planters and missionaries took refuge in the Sadar Station of Sibsagar where the Church had been converted into a fortress, well-stored with provisions.

The Britishers had become desperate to capture the key instigator of the unrest in Assam.

30/ It was few of Maniram‟s letters to the Charing Raja intercepted by the Principal Assistant Captain Holroyd at Sibsagar, that brought things to a halt.

In one of the letters it was written, “At this present (moment) the growl of the tiger is everywhere heard"

31/ The letter confirmed the complicity of the Charing Raja and Maniram Dewan in the plot against the British.

On 9th Sept 1857, the Charing Raja was arrested by the British army from the palace at Jorhat.

And Maniram was arrested in Calcutta sometime in September 1857.

32/ Based on the statement of Haranath Parbatia Baruah, the daroga (inspector) of Sibsagar, Maniram was identified as the kingpin of the plot.

He and Piyali Barua were publicly hanged on 26 February 1858 at the Jorhat jail.

33/ His death was widely mourned in Assam, and several tea garden workers openly rebelled that was suppressed forcefully.

After his death, Maniram's tea estates were sold to George Williamson.

34/ His legacy lives on in folk songs known as “Maniram Dewan Geet” with a movie made on his life in 1964.

Dr. Bhupen Hazarika penned & famously sang “Buku Hum Hum Kare” to portray the anxiety and struggle for freedom.

35/ The same song by Hazarika was later translated in Hindi to the evergreen song Dil Hoom Hoom Kare, featured in the famous movie Rudaali.

36/ A whitewashed history reduces the "Father of Assam Tea" as a local nobleman’ who showed the British ‘wild herbs’ in the valleys of Assam.

But, the story of Maniram Dewan is steeped in layers of- friendship, betrayal, remorse, loyalty, triumph, and above all, eternal glory.