Indian Historical Review

The rulers of the Sena dynasty claim to belong to the lunar race. They were settled in Bengal as a ruling dynasty. With the attack of Muhammad ibn Bakhtyar Khilji in AD 1202, the rule of King Lakshmanasena, the last ruler of Bengal of this dynasty, ended. The rulers of Sena dynasty, after their decline in Bengal in AD 1205, appeared in the land of Nepal and established the kingdom of Makawanpur during the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The kingdom of Makawanpur was subjugated by the then rising political power of Gorkhalis in AD 1762. In the Senas’ rule, the nature of administration was centralised, though there were judicial, district and local administrative units. Besides, the influence of Mughal administration is clearly seen in the administration during the Senas’ rule. It is said that the historical study of administrative posts during the Sena period is essential to understand the present-day administration of Nepal.

This article intends to provide an extensive study of ṭhakkura, whose emergence as feudatory chief in early medieval northern India is well attested from sources. Based on the evidence of Sanskrit literary texts and inscriptions, it focuses upon the obligations of this class of landholders towards the state and overlord. In return of the services rendered by him, a ṭhakkura was provided with the grants of land and villages either by the king or the respective overlord. His position as sub-vassal under important Rajput clans in northern India is also established from contemporary inscriptional records. The Brahman ṭhakkuras, who are mentioned in the inscriptions with their gotras and pravaras, received unconditional grants of land and villages for the acquisition of spiritual merit on special occasions and holy dates (tithis). The functions of ṭhakkura chiefs as holders of villages or land are also being highlighted in the present paper. The local village assembly consisting of panchkula or mahājans maintained the account of the activities of ṭhakkuras and also imposed some restrictions on them. Besides serving as military chief, which was the foremost duty of a ṭhakkura, he was also appointed on various official and unofficial posts.

The conferment of the title ṭhakkura in some cases to the persons who already held the titles like rānaka, rājputra and rāuta naturally strengthened the position of ṭhakkura title holders in the feudal hierarchy. The evidence regarding their role as traders in Gujarat is however scarce. On account of the significant position held by a ṭhakkura, his sons and grandsons often inherited his rank and office. With the liquidation of feudal order, many of these ṭhakkuras lost their earlier holdings. They were confined as petty bhomiās in most parts of western Marwar in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The article, through an investigation of a plethora of colonial reports, correspondences and petitions, attempts to build a history of frontier spaces invested in resource appropriation. Discovered in the forests of the northeastern tracts of British India in the early nineteenth century, rubber entailed the culmination of a resource frontier whose effects simultaneously produced the disruptive as well as the dialogical in a multiplicity of extractive as well as non-extractive activities. As the material intricacies of appropriating rubber located beyond the assumed political boundary of the colonial state littered the frontier geography with strange institutions and legal apparatus, there circulated at the same time certain ideas and perceptions that wove the region and its people within an ideological geography that increasingly rationalised the operative intentionality of the resource frontier. The effects noted, sometimes through the violent outbursts of military combat and sometimes through the discursive politics of petition writing, bring forth the complexities that the project of rubber appropriation unfolded for the region.

This article necessarily explores the dissensions and differences arising from the British domination over the Tamil-speaking regions of the erstwhile Madras Presidency before and during the Great Uprising of 1857. It seeks to explore the role played by the Madras Army during this period. The narrative of events vindicates the fact that the situation in Tamil districts was by no means tranquil and there were instances of resistance, if not rebelliousness, on the part of the native inhabitants to the Company’s government. The discontent in the lower ranks of the Company’s army was also very much evident, which has seldom received attention in the mainstream South Asian historiography. The reasons behind these occasional bouts of discontent were not simply related to financial and pecuniary reasons. In this context, it becomes imperative to unearth the possible hidden links, if any, between the rebellious incidents of north India and the brewing discontent within the Madras Army. The most important issue that needs to be taken into consideration primarily relates to the different types of responses that were noticed among the indigenous social groups.

Are hills meant for Nagas and plains for Assamese? How and when did the idea of hills and plains as isolated and separated terrain get solidified? Drawing references from the tour diaries and reports of the colonial officials, this article attempts to deconstruct the binary of ‘hills’ and ‘plains’ by emphasising on networks of communication and citing instances of trade and commerce between the dwellers of hills and plains. It draws a trajectory of the policies of the colonial and post-colonial governments, which began drawing lines between people and regulated their mobility. The sedentarisation attempted by the state, finally culminated as the border. The article is therefore an attempt in understanding the politics of border which hints towards two directions: impossibility of writing history and the continuous ‘unmaking’ of the nation.

This article is a historical examination of the Kargil incident in the context of the actions by India. This article begins by presenting a historical account on the evolution of the Line of Control (LOC) in Jammu and Kashmir. The development of the LOC has a complex history, including lapse of British paramountcy, three wars, United Nations (UN) interplay and negotiated bilateral agreements. The second part of this article analyses the facts of the Kargil incident. A particular focus of this part concerns instigation and encroachment and the response by India to address such conduct. The third part of this article analyses the principles on the use of force as established in international law. This analysis sets the basis upon which the appraisal in part four occurs. As will be seen, two interdependent sources, treaty and customary law, govern the use of force, with defined principles of engagement and conduct justification. Part four of this article appraises the Kargil incident against the principles on the use of force to establish whether the actions by India were a violation of, or justified under, international law. This study demonstrates that the actions adopted by India were consistent with international obligations on the use of force.

The tram was established to extract valuable sal timber from the reserve forest of erstwhile Goalpara district of Assam. Sal timber was in demand for its use as sleepers for railway tracks, as it was durable enough to be used to fasten the railway tracks. In the past, sal timber was brought near the river banks by elephants and bullock cart and then transported through river routes to Dhubri from where the timber was supplied to different places. The sal timber was found in inaccessible areas and, therefore, more labour was required for transporting them. Hence, the forest department set up a tram in Goalpara forest. This article deals with the basic necessity that led to the establishment of the tram in Kochugaon reserve forest of Goalpara Forest Division.