The Tai Ahom National Council Memo Scheduling

The British deliberate policy for “the marginalization and pauperization of the Ahom
chieftains and the emergence of the a Caste Hindu bureaucracy” and their dominance, had soon
turned the Ahom “overnight from princes into paupers, from benefactors into beneficiaries, from
lords into untouchables, thus had to fight a bitter struggle for survival and re-emergence”
(Devabrata Sharma, “Tai-Ahoms: From Social Mobility to Political Aspirations”, Indian
Journal of Tai Studies, Vol. III, March 2003, p. 86).
Ahom Turned Leaderless:
Without their ruling kings and nobles who were their political leaders, without power,
without land holding and money, the Ahom in general became rudderless and dumb as in stupor,
and had began to lead a life like cocoons encased. At the same time other communities
particularly those of the higher class Hindus, who had earlier enjoyed political patronage and
economic benefits in the form of large land grants and high social status, continued to enjoy the
same even under the new rule. While the Ahoms kept themselves away from the “foreign
usurpers” the non-Ahom communities showed no hesitation to take up employment under the
British and readily sent their wards to schools opened by the British.
Ahom Became Backward Educationally:
It is under such circumstances that the Ahom backwardness, politically, socially, in economic
sphere, and educationally must be considered. Even after a lapse of more than one and a half
century the Ahom did not recover from the great disaster caused by the sudden loss of power.
Even today the Ahom are comparatively backward in respect of economic and educational
spheres.
P. R. T. Gurdon, the high British official noted, “In educational matters the Ahoms are
more backward then even the ordinary Assamese Hindus.” (Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics, p. 235).
Absence of Private Ownership of Land in Upper Assam:
It may be noted that under the proper Ahom system that was in force in Upper Assam private
ownership of land did not exist. All land belonged to the state and all men belonged to it. A
separate land-holding class did not exist except the religious institutions and Brahmin priests that
enjoyed grants rent-free. In the absence of such land holdings, the Ahoms were turned into
landless people. Though they were now free to take up land by clearing jungles, because of the